


If They Were Fictional Characters Is It Murder

by IAmAshamedOfMyFanfics (faraandmera)



Series: The ones where people voted on the results [2]
Category: ASTRO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, a voluntary one at that, and bascially everything is not the same as that story, better example:the confession mv except is not fun, eunwoo not me, ever watched W? that drama where that doctor accidentally ends up inside her fathers comic?, havent decided if anyone die or not yet so, its done so obviously the voting does matter any more, like that except eunwoo isnt a doctor and he's the one who wrote the story, listen no spoilers but there might be a killing game, maybe me too, not required obviously if you just wanna read, should i have put a ? in the title, slight interactive elements for people reading as its updated, when you dont know the plot to your own story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-10 16:51:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17429762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faraandmera/pseuds/IAmAshamedOfMyFanfics
Summary: It starts- like most things do- when everything seemed normal. Fine. Expected, and entirely unremarkable. College student, and part-time comic book author, Lee Dongmin woke in the same state as most days. That is to say: entirely too exhausted to feel like a real person. However, sometimes unexpected things happen, no matter what you do. How prepared you are.And there was no way Dongmin could have been prepared for the situation he's in.Would anyone be prepared to come face-to-face with the characters he's created?Would anyone be prepared to end up in a life-or-death game of their own creation?





	1. What Isn't Anticipated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its me, back at it again with writing the astro kids in dark no good games  
> why am i like this

Inevitably, over the course of someone’s life, many unexpected things will happen. No matter how prepared they are for any situation, no matter how put-together their life is, something unexpected is bound to happen. This isn’t a new revelation, nor is it surprising.

Still, even amongst things that are unexpected this might just rank near the top. Dongmin is fairly sure- if he were able to explain the situation to someone- anyone would agree. He can’t, though. Explain, that is. It’s difficult to explain something when you yourself are at a loss for what has happened. Trying to wrap his mind around the situation, Dongmin tries to figure out exactly when the unexpected turn began.

It starts- like most things do- when everything seemed normal. Fine. Expected, and entirely unremarkable. College student, and part-time comic book author, Lee Dongmin woke in the same state as most days. That is to say: entirely too exhausted to feel like a real person. What followed, too, was fairly normal. A canceled lecture leaving his schedule clear for a number of hours, he took to doing what he usually does with his free time: avoid writing or illustrating the story he’s been working on the next chapter of for a solid month. Well, _avoiding_ wouldn’t be quite the right way to say it.

Trying and failing to make progress, _then_ avoiding, would be a better- more honest- way to put it. The story- and important factor in the _unexpected_  course of the day- was a fairly simple concept. A group of characters in a life-or-death game; one they were all willing a part of. It wasn’t really the plot itself that was the problem, but the characters. Dongmin had, after all, purposefully made them seem like the kind of people who _wouldn’t_  willing participate in such a game. He meant to slowly reveal their reasons, of course, but that was the problem. He couldn’t seem to find a natural way for it to come up for one of them, and thus the story had come to a standstill.

This, of course, wasn’t particularly strange. In fact it wouldn’t have been anything of note on a regular day. Something he cursed himself for later, maybe, but not anything worth remembering. At least… it _wouldn’t_  have been.

Except...

At approximately 4:40 in the afternoon, he left his room to eat something, and returned only to find it in complete disarray. Papers- the pages of his story- strewn across the ground, and his pens leaking ink across his desk. Startled, confused, he scans his room for any sign of what caused the scene, only to feel a sudden pressure at the back of his head.

Then Dongmin woke in the exact _unexpected situation_  that was undeniably high up on the list of unexpected situations. He woke in a vaguely familiar room- yet one he was sure he’d never been in- with distinctly, unsettlingly familiar faces staring at him in what is only slightly less surprise and confusion than what he must be facing them with. Because he _knows_ those faces.

He _made_  those faces.

“Look, he’s awake!” The voice is exactly what he expects, from the person it comes from. Which only further confirms what Dongmin thinks is going on.

“But _how did he get here?_ ” Another, deeper, voice asks. With a surprising amount of calm to his tone, the person who speaks looks back to Dongmin. “Hey, are you okay? Can you answer our questions?”

He doesn’t think he can, but nods despite himself. Hesitant, confused, Dongmin gives a small, “yes.”

“What are you doing here?” Another voice. "I wouldn't expect the first person to pass out on the ground."

“I don’t know.” The second part of the others statement- the  _first person_ part- is left unaddressed.

“Who are you?” The first voice again.

“I’m-” What is he supposed to say, he wonders. Goes over the responses he could give. The truth? A fake name? But the only fake name he can think of, in his increasingly anxious mind, is his pen name. Finally, he answers. “Eunwoo.” It’s not _technically_ a lie, he thinks.

“I’m Jinwoo,” The second voice greets him, offers a hand so Dongmin can finally stand from his place on the ground. __I know__ , Dongmin thinks. He should know the name of his own character, after all. The other two- Sanha and Bin, the first and third voices respectively- introduce themselves as well, but Dongmin barely notices. It shouldn’t be possible that they’re talking to him.

They aren’t meant to _exist_  in a way that would allow that. Where he recognizes the room from finally clicks, too. One of main settings for the comic: the meeting room where the games contestants are given information about the game they signed up for. But, he realizes, that’s strange.

It should only be open when everyone alive is together. And, more so, one of the people in front of him is _dead_  at the point in the story he’s reached. The only time when the current situation would be possible- ignoring the fact it shouldn’t be possible for him to be there in the first place- would be at the very beginning. Before the game has actually started.

At the very beginning of the comic, when he was introducing the characters. Then, the next person to arrive would be Myungjun.

“Hey am I the last to arrive?” Tone oddly cheerful despite the kind of game he’s signed up for, the character- person? The aforementioned person arrives. Dongmin’s head spins. Realization and confusion melding together into a sick feeling of distress.

“Nope, there should be one more!” Sanha’s response rings in Dongmin’s head. Myungjun nods, accepting the answer, but that’s _wrong_. There are only five contestants in the game. Dongmin’s presence should offset that. Unless something was different from how he wrote it.

No, something was different. The fact that he’s _here_  means it is. But, then… is he a participant? Do they think he’s a _participant_? Dongmin feels sick to his stomach.

It’s a game of _life and death_. People die. He’s written them with the purpose of dying. But he hasn’t written, nor planned, an ending for himself in the game. The story isn’t meant to have him in it.

The final of them- Minhyuk- arrives, and the room’s door locks behind him. Rules are laid out for the room’s occupants- rules Dongmin knows by heart- and in a blur, the next half hour passes. Until Dongmin is sitting in a room- one he was assigned- that he’s never drawn. Didn’t create. Didn’t plan for.

Inevitably, over the course of someone’s life, many unexpected things will happen. But, even amongst things that are unexpected, this has to rank near the top. The sick feeling in his stomach still twisting, reminding him that he has to be awake, Dongmin mutters the only words that will come to him.

_“What the fuck.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dont know if i'll do the interactive choices thing I did with Escape: Astro (dorm) but maybe  
> we'll see next chapter, wont we.
> 
> I'll go over the games rules next chapter. this one was just to establish the setting, ya know?
> 
> eunwoo didn't get a chapter in escape so he gets to be the MC this time  
> it has nothing to do with my own biases  
> at all  
> really


	2. What The Game Was Meant To Be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look at me updating regularly  
> who am i

The rules of the game, as Dongmin wrote them, weren’t particularly complicated. A list of six rules.

  1. Outside of specified days, violence and murder are forbidden.
  2. Based on support from third parties- viewers-, points will be awarded to the participants.
  3. On the specified days (at the end of the week) 1 participant will be chosen, and they will be given supplies/help based on their awarded points.
  4. Anything goes for all participants during this day.
  5. Anyone able to escape the games location is considered a victor, and awarded the same prize as “correct” winners.
  6. The last surviving participant is the “correct” winner. Escaped participants will be considered, “dead,” when considering the “correct” winner.



Though the rules weren’t particularly complicated, once understood, they weren’t as simple as explained, either. After all, escaping the games grounds was a herculean task, when considering the security surrounding the area. Surviving that escape was the route for anyone who wasn’t willing to kill during the game itself, but it was more difficult, being that security was trained for their tasks. It was easier to survive against fellow participants, who weren’t.

Then again, facing the games other participants for one’s life wasn’t _easy_  either. Especially if it was their day to use their points, and they were given more viable ways to fulfil their tasks. This was, in turn, the way the first death was meant to take place. A cruel murder, and the one that Dongmin had the most regrets about. It hadn’t been as well planned, nor portrayed, as intended. A fact which lead him to have the murder’s popularity in-universe drastically drop after it. He never checked the fan response of the comic itself, when it came to that, however. Though Dongmin doubts people were particularly happy that he killed the youngest first.

Killed him, right? Because he’d spoken to Sanha. He was real- in some way- now. Did that mean Dongmin killed him too? Was he that one responsible, more than Bin? Of course he was. Bin was only responsible for that _because_ Dongmin _wrote him_ to be.

The ticking of a clock, hanging on a wall of the small room he was given, echos in his head. Only serves to further the pounding in his head, not aided by his anxiety-driven thoughts.

It wasn’t his fault, he assures himself. They weren’t _real_. They _aren’t_  real.

When the week comes to an end, he’ll escape. Knows the place well enough to believe he can. Even if it means allowing things to go the way they weren’t originally meant to. Even if it means knowing letting someone- no, not someone, he isn’t _real_ \- die. He has to leave. Whatever guilt he might feel, Dongmin can’t stay here.

 

Dongmin is distinctly aware, when he arrives in the common area, that he’s being watched. That the building the participants are located in is monitored. That their game is a show for people who aren’t a part of it. A form of entertainment society is so used to they don’t question it, despite the fact that the world is otherwise _normal_. At first it had been an excuse for the point system, but Dongmin eventually had wanted to expand upon it. Thought it was interesting. It’s less interesting, now. Being a part of it removes his interest, and makes it disturbing.

The common area is like a big living room, chair and couches set around a table. There isn’t a television, but there is a bookshelf and a CD player. A kitchen is connected, the dangerous items within impossible to ignore given their situation. When Dongmin arrives, Sanha is rummaging through the cabinets, while Bin sits on one of the couches, book in hand. They were the most focused-on characters of the first volume, Dongmin remembers. Back when one of them dying was the only plot point he’d thought of.

“Oh, Eunwoo, hey.” Bin’s greeting draws Dongmin out of his thoughts. _Right_ , his pen name. He’d nearly forgotten he’d given them it, instead of his real name.

“Yeah, good morning?” It was technically still before noon, at least. “What are you up to?”

“Looking smart.” Bin raises the book, humor colouring his tone. Trying to gain popularity, by appearing well-read. It was partially true, Dongmin remembers writing Bin’s thoughts on the matter. He did, however, find reading a good way to pass the time until the end of the week.

“Right.” Dongmin nods. “Interesting book, at least?”

“Yeah. Sorta. It’s one of those, “in another world,” stories. But not a horrible one.” Bin shrugs, while Dongmn blanches at the thought. In another world, huh? He makes a mental note to avoid the book. “I was reading with Sanha, but the kid's incapable of sitting still.”

Dongmin wants to argue that _none_  of them are very good at that, but he isn’t meant to know them well enough to say that. So, instead, he laughs.

“I’m not a kid!” Sanha calls from the kitchen, despite it being close enough that he doesn’t need to.

“A baby?”

“That’s worse!” Sanha gives an annoyed huff, spinning around and clutching a box of cereal to his chest. “You’re awful.”

“Now that’s just mean.”

Watching them interact- joke around, be generally friendly- makes Dongmin feel sick to his stomach. One of them is going to _kill_  the other, and it’s his fault. Watching them feels wrong. He forces himself to ignore them, block out their voices, and makes his way to the bookshelf, hoping for a distraction. Something to make this easier. Make their presence easier.

 

_Blood splatters on the ground, a hand grasps at a leg. The grip of the hand loosens, drops to the ground, and finally the people in the frame are revealed. Sanha lays on the ground, head bleeding and eyes open. Bin looks down, horrified despite being responsible, holding a broken glass bottle. Shards of it have shattered into his hands, but he doesn’t seem to notice._

_Sanha is the first to die. And all at once, the near-peaceful atmosphere around this games participants disappears. Shattered by the first murder._

_Even the one responsible is unhappy with what they’ve done._

 

Even the one responsible. The image of the scene- one he drew- is permanently etched into Dongmin’s brain. Plays on repeat when Bin jokingly raises a bottle in a halfhearted threat at Sanha.

Sanha had been planning on escaping, rather than trying to be the final survivor. Bin had run into Sanha and panicked, thinking the other was going to fight. Neither of them had wanted what happened. It shouldn’t have happened.

Could Dongmin really just leave, and let that happen? After meeting them? Now that they were real; now that they had talked to him? Could he bring himself to do that?

The answer, he realized as he stared down at a book in front of him, was no. He had to do something. Whether he helped Sanha escape, or stopped Bin. He had to do _something_.

 

But which would be the better option?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should Eunwoo **Help Sanha escape** or **Stop Bin**?
> 
> yes i decided to do the same thing as I did with Escape, where I let you guys make big choices.  
> no it's not just because I couldn't decide  
> probably.


	3. Stopping Bin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Majority voted to STOP BIN
> 
> i apparently exclusively post at odd hours in the morning  
> please let me know if there any obvious spelling/grammar mistakes. I HAVE edited it, but it's late (for me) and I haven't slept.

Stopping Bin, Dongmin decides, is the better- easier- option. Helping Sanha plan an escape takes time, and requires gaining Sanha’s trust. While he knows Sanha well enough- having created him- to do so, it would still take time he’s not certain he has. So, stopping Bin.

Sanha is supposed to die at exactly 2:04pm, on the Saturday that ends their first week of the game. Sanha will be the chosen participant, that day, and will use his rescources the plot an escape. It failed, originally, because of Bin. This time, Dongmin will make certain Bin wont be there when Sanha begins his escape plan.

This time, he wont be killing his characters.

Being that Dongmin wrote and drew it, logically he should remember all of the events of the day in question. However, he doesn’t remember as many details as he might be excepted to. Because he only remembers specific things, he can’t come up with some complex solution to his problem. Instead, he focuses on the information he _does_  have.

  * Firstly: at 2:04, Bin will be hiding in a storage room, sitting on the side of a hallway that leads outside the building. Having left his room, unable to avoid his need for food and water, and having meant to sneak back, he hides when he hears Sanha coming. Despite have previously though little of Sanha as a threat, the reality of their situation had gotten to him, and caused him to think he needed to attack before Sanha could.
  * Second: He hadn’t actually meant to _kill_  Sanha, just stop him.
  * Third: Nobody else was aware of what happened until an announcement told them, due to being locked in their own rooms. Most having the foresight to take food and water the day before, due to the same distrust that caused Bin to kill Sanha. Bin only forgot because Minhyuk had distracted him with some conversation, the day before, and the thought hadn’t returned until the next day.
  * Fourth: a new fact Dongmin is aware of, now that he’s in the game himself, is that Bin’s room is directly across from his own. Meaning he might be able to stop Bin long before he leaves for food and water.



With all of this in mind, Dongmin develops a plan. It’s simple: remind Bin about food and water, the day before. Now, Dongmin considers the chance that Bin will somehow still get distracted by something else, so he has to make sure he, himself, has enough food and water stored in his own room, to give to Bin should this be the case. Then it’s a matter of Bin trusting him enough to take it, during the day in which violence and murder is allowed.

That, probably, was going to be the most difficult. Gaining the others trust. After all, he wrote Bin’s backstory specifically to explain his distrust, and reaction to Sanha’s approach. Sanha, too, had already become Bin’s friend by the time it happened, so that alone wasn’t enough.

Then what would help? What would stop the first murder from happening? What could Dongmin do, to stop Bin from becoming the character he’d written him to be?

 

Day 2- 3? The second day, after the night they arrived, Tuesday, Dongmin begins his plan. Drops down across from Bin, on one of the couches, and starts by trying to be friendly. Normal as possible, given their situation.

“So, still trying to look smart?” Dongmin asks, motioning to the book in the other’s hand. Not being read, but stared at, until Bin looks up to meet Dongmin’s eyes. Across the room, Jinwoo looks at the two oddly, before leaving.

“I am smart.” Bin’s tone- offended- is in contrast to the more honest appearance of the smile on his face. “No, just trying to find something to do. It’s not like they give us tasks or anything. Just, “try to gain popularity or points before your day,” as if that’s easy.”

It wasn’t like reality shows in the real world, Dongmin knows. Where they give them daily tasks, and let that show there personalities, in that situation. At least not for the first week. Showing them normally- as just people living their lives- was how they drew people in. Normal, nice people. Who, once the pressure of tasks and death come, break and do horrible things.

Dongmin shakes his head. “I mean, someone out there is bound to like you. Statistically.”

“Statistically,” Bin repeats, shaking his head. “What kind of participants did you favor, before you were a contestant?”

The question throws Dongmin off balance, mentally. Which kind of participant? All of them. They were all written specifically to be likable. People he would have wanted to be friends with, if they were real and not in the game. He can’t say that, of course. Both because it’s a non-answer, and because Bin is talking about _previous_  games.

“I- well- admittedly didn’t watch much of it. Usually the ones planning to escape instead of fight?”

“Ah, so I should announce my plan to escape!” Bin laughs, tugging at the corner of the book’s cover. “Not that, that means anything when I don’t have a plan yet.”

“Who knows, it might.” It could, so long as Dongmin stops Bin from becoming a murderer. “What about you?”

“Huh?”

“The participants you liked?” It’s a question- one of few- that Dongmin doesn’t know the answer to. He never considered the question, when writing the others. So whatever Bin says, Dongmin didn’t choose. Didn’t plan for him.

“Obviously the pretty ones,” Bin says, humor colouring his voice. “I don’t know; any I identified with, but I couldn’t really say they all fit into the same category, you know?”

“Sure.” Dongmin nods. It’s strange, he thinks, how easy the conversation is. As if most the people they’re talking about wouldn’t have died. As if most of them weren’t _real_. The same way Dongmin would have talked about Bin, just two days ago

“What are you going to do?” The question is quiet, Bin no longer looking at Dongmin. “What’s your plan, Eunwoo?”

“Escape, obviously.” Once he had done this, he’d escape. He was sure of it. He just had to save Sanha from Bin, first. “You?”

“Escape, of course,” Bin says, simply. There’s a small smile on his face, as he says this. “Hopefully we’ll both make it, when we try.”

“Yeah.” Dongmin stares down at his own hands. Would they? Once he does this- changes things- he has no idea what will change. What the others will do. “Hey, Bin?”

“Yeah?”

“If you weren’t a contestant this time, who would you be rooting for?”

He doesn’t want to know, Dongmin realizes, as Bin considers his question. He shouldn’t have asked. Doesn’t- “You or Sanha, maybe?”

Dongmin barely manages not to flinch. “Oh?”

“Yeah, the kid's just cute enough you have to want him to survive, right?”

“True.” Dongmin tries to laugh, but it comes out weak. Bin looks up at him, again, surprise and what must be concern on his face.

“Eunwoo?”

“I- uh- sorry. Just- it’s- It just hit me that this is real.” He means it more than Bin could ever understand.

“It does feel strange, huh?”

“Yeah.”

 _Strange_ is a word for it.

 

Dongmin returns to his room, shortly after that. Can’t bring himself to eat; sick to his stomach. It was as if Bin knew. Was throwing what Dongmin had done- made Bin do- in his face. As if he was trying to make it worse than it already was.

Dongmin knows this isn’t true- isn’t possible- but that doesn’t make him feel any better about it. A few consecutive knocks at his door force him back into reality. If that’s what this situation even is. He forces himself up, out of bed, and to his door. It doesn’t have a lock- most barricade their door during the weeks end- so the fact someone knocked narrows down the people it could be. Certainly not Sanha or Myungjun.

Jinwoo, it turns out, is the one knocking. “Eunwoo, hey.”

“Did you need something?” Dongmin leans against his door, looking at the other.

“Bin said you looked sick, so I got worried. I know no one could do anything even if they wanted, but still…”

“I’m okay, thanks for worrying. Just realizing what situation I-” Dongmin clears his throat, the words he was going to use being pushed back- “put myself in.”

“Okay, if you say so.”

 

Day 4- Dongmin has decided to count the day they arrived- finds him in a similar way to the day before. This time, however, he’s outside. Still on the games grounds, of course, but outside the building. In the small, grass-covered, area they’re allowed. Bin, laying on the ground, this time sans-book, hasn’t addressed Dongmin since he got there.

Finally, after what must be ten minutes, Bin speaks. “So what did you do?”

“Huh?”

“Before the game, I mean.”

College? Draw comics? Dongmin considers his options. Considers making something up. But what good would that do? “I draw comics.”

“Anything I might have heard of?”

 _Only your entire life, Bin_. Dongmin shakes his head. “They’re nothing popular. What about you?”

“In college.” Dongmin gives a small, “oh,” in response to this. Pretends he didn’t know this already. Part of him wonders if he should have been an actor, with how little anyone seems to suspect him.

“Exciting.”

“Very.” Bin laughs.

“What were you planning to do, once you finish?”

“Be a teacher, maybe?” Bin shrugs, turning his head to look at Dongmin. Yet another thing killing Sanha ruined. Though everything in the game is legalized, that didn’t mean anyone was keen on letting those who killed someone teach their kids.

“Well then you definitely have to escape.”

“Yeah.” There’s something off about Bin’s tone. Too soft, too lacking emotion, for Dongmin not to think it’s odd.

“Hey, Bin?”

“Yeah?”

“Why did you enter the game?”

“I-” Bin pauses, bites his lips, then shakes his head- “that’s not really any of your business, Eunwoo.”

With that, Bin stands, and leaves back inside. Dongmin should have expected that. He knew why, after all. Knew how much Bin needed the prize- the money- that surviving would grant him. And he knew that Bin wouldn’t answer, even when he asked.

Dongmin stares at the grass under him, and considers what he should do. How much will Bin actually trust him, when the time comes? How much does he _need_  to trust Dongmin, in order to stop him.

 

Day 5, Thursday, the contestants wake to find a note posted on the wall of their common area. A listing, both of their current popularity- and points- as well as an announcement for who will be the selected participant, for the week. Sanha gasps, when he sees his own name, and takes off to his room. Though he doesn’t say why, Dongmin knows Sanha is going to plan his escape, now that he knows what he’ll be able to do.

Dongmin is both surprised, and relieved, to note his name is listed as Cha Eunwoo. Whatever force brought him here, and put him in the game, was at least kind enough to let his lie about his name be maintained.

Sanha is ranked third, of the six of them. Bin is ranked above Sanha, just barely. When the story was written, originally, Dongmin had put him as first place, and Sanha second. Had used that as a stark contrast when, next time, Bin was at the bottom of the rank.

“Wow, Eunwoo, maybe the general public likes the same kind of contestants I do,” Bin says, resting an arm on Dongim’s shoulder as he looks at the ranking. Startled, he turns to Bin.

“What?”

Bin points at the ranking- at Dongmin’s placing above Bin- before turning back to Dongmin.“Because I said the pretty ones? But I was joking, so I guess they don’t really.”

“Oh.” Dongmin laughs, shaking his head. “I don’t know if that’s why- I mean- I really expected you to be first.”

“Why’s that?”

Why was that? Dongmin couldn’t tell the truth. A thought he’s repeated to himself far too often, since arriving. Can’t tell the truth, because _what_? They wouldn’t believe him? Would think he was crazy? What would that even actually _do_?

“Don’t know, you just seem likable, I guess?”

“Aw.” Bin place a hand to his heart. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t take it that seriously.”

 

Jinwoo manages, somehow, to get everyone together later that day. To have at least one meal together. Sanha and Myungjun are loud, energetic, the only two seemingly not affected by how close the end of the week is. Everyone else is quieter, but nobody seems _worried,_ particularly. Dongmin picks at his food and considers how little time he has left to fix things. The conversation around him is familiar, too much so. Things he remembers writing, now that he’s hearing them.

“You know, theoretically all of us could make it out of here.” Jinwoo’s words catch Dongmin- and everyone else- off guard. Had he written that? He must have. Must have used it to explain a situation that could- but wouldn't- happen. One that he, this time, might try to make happen.

“Theoretically,” Bin repeats, a scoff following. He drops his arms onto the table, and glances at Dongmin, frowning. “Like we can trust that, huh?”

Trust. Of course Bin wouldn’t believe that. It required he trust the others too much. Believe none of them are here for an excuse to kill. None are, Dongmin knows, but Bin could never trust that. “I don’t know if trust is the biggest issue with it.”

“Hey, guys, come on. I’m trying to be _optimistic_.” Jinwoo sighs, exasperation in his tone. Myungjun pats him on the back and offers his agreement. Minhyuk is quite. Sanha nods along with Myungjun.

“As long as most of us try to escape, it’ll be fine!”

“If we survive that.” Minhyuk’s words bring a frown to Myungjun’s face, but Sanha seems unaffected.

“We will! As long as we’re careful.”

“You assume everyone will try.” Bin frowns at them.

“We will.” Jinwoo’s voice hold a certainty Dongmin is grateful for. While caught up in what happens with Sanha and Bin, he’d nearly forgotten there were three other characters here. And that one was someone like Jinwoo. “Right, _Eunwoo_?”

Startled at being addressed, Dongmin nods. “Yeah. I’m sure we’d all rather escape.”

Dongmin looks at Bin, again, and the other breathes a sigh. Standing, Bin looks over the group once more, before leaving the room.

“What’s up with him?” Myungjun asks, frowning.

“I’m sure he has a reason,” Dongmin says, knowing more than he should how true that is.

He only has one more day to make Bin trust someone.

 

Day 6, Friday. Everyone is too preoccupied with preparations to pay a lot of attention to each other. Sanha closes himself in his room, ignoring the others. There are small conversations, here and there. Jinwoo and Myungjun have breakfast together, discussing their plans for the next day. Minhyuk and Bin have a short conversation about barricading their doors, and what the best way to do so might be. Though they all _want_  to believe escape will be everyone’s choice- that Sanha is planning to leave- they couldn’t be sure. That lack of certainty brought with it caution.

Bin, distracted by conversation about blocking his door, ends up preoccupied putting everything in position to make this happen quicker. Which is why Dongmin finds himself standing outside Bin’s room, knocking on the door.

“Yeah?”

“Bin, hey, did you- you made sure you had food and water, right?”

“What- oh, no. I’ll get that once I finish- uh- moving stuff.” Bin shrugs, unconcerned. Dongmin understands Bin not being worried. After all, he doesn’t know what will happen. “Thanks for reminding me, though. Why would you…”

“What?”

“Why remind me?”

“Oh.” Dongmin pauses, his answer shifting between the original reason- saving Sanha- and one that is both more believable, yet still true. “You’re the person I talked to the most, this past week. I guess I just want to make sure the person I can most consider a friend here, is safe.”

It’s not a lie. Dongmin had, originally, just wanted to save Sanha, and subsequently save Bin from what would turn into a guilty, sad life. To undo the hurt he’d originally brought to them. But, somehow, that wasn’t all, now. They were real people, as much as that was hard for him to believe. Bin had spoken to him, answered questions in ways that Dongmin wouldn’t have originally written him to. He was not the same Bin that Dongmin had written. Was one who could avoid the same fate.

He didn’t want anything to happen to the other. Didn’t want Bin to become a murderer.

“Well, thanks.” Bin, shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “Having a friend here isn’t half bad.”

 

Dongmin goes to his own preparations after that. He knows Sanha wont kill anyone. Knows none of them are going to. So he gathers supplies entirely in case Bin still doesn’t prepare enough. In case some other distraction kept him from doing so.

At exactly 2:04, Sanha was supposed to die. At 1:58, Bin was supposed to realize his lack of supplies, and leave his room.

This time, on day 7, when Sanha is awarded supplies based on points he’s been given- supplies he’ll use to escape- Dongmin is confident he’ll live past 2:04. This time, as long as he is careful, he can stop Bin, and let Sanha escape.

A voice comes over the buildings intercom system, at exactly midnight, telling them that violence and murder is allowed.

When 2pm is approaching, Dongmin stands beside his door. Listening out in case Bin leaves his room. Ear pressed against his door, Dongmin waits. Listens, waits, holds his breath as 1:57 comes and ends. As the sound of a door opening just barely reaches him. Dongmin waits a second- a pause to be convincing he wasn’t waiting for this to potentially happen- before opening his door.

Bin stops his walk down the hallway- a walk reminiscent of a teenager sneaking into their home- to look at Dongmin. Immediately shock, worry, and fear, are present and obvious in Bin’s expressions. Expressions far too similar to the one’s Bin wore when he realized he’d killed Sanha.

“What are you doing, Bin?”

“I…” Guilt. “I know you reminded me. But I was so preoccupied-”

“Come here, then. You’re-” going to kill someone- “looking too worried to make good choices.”

“Excuse me?”

“I have extra-”

“What made you open your door?”

“I heard you.”

“How did you- so quickly-”

“I didn’t barricade my door. I trust you guys.” He knows his own characters well enough to trust them that much. “And you’re my _friend_.”

With clear hesitance, Bin makes his way over. When Dongmin opens his door, letting Bin into the room, Bin frowns before finally entering. Dongmin passes Bin a water bottle, and then sits on his bed.

“You really didn’t block your door. What if someone had tried to kill you?”

“Why, will you?” Dongmin doesn’t mean for the words to come out so harshly. Bin flinches, shaking his head.

“Of course not. I couldn’t kill anyone.”

He couldn’t, if Dongmin didn’t organize a situation specifically to make him. Dongmin looks away from Bin, to the wall, and nods. _Then you’re a better persona than me_. Dongmin sighs. “I’m sure I’ve got enough here for both of us, so take whatever you need. Or stay here, I don’t mind.”

“Thank you, Eunwoo.”

“I-” he nods- “no problem.”

They wait out the day in Dongmin’s room.

 

At exactly midnight, an announcement comes over the intercom system of the building. The voice of the games, “host,” come to tell them the results of the week.

“The day has ended, all real violence is now prohibited. It looks like none of you killed each other! Will this group be the first to go until the end without murder? I’d say without death, but…” They trail off, a small sigh. “Sanha attempted to escape the ground, and failed. The weeks only casualty is Yoon Sanha. Well then, until next week.”

“Sanha- Sanha is- he died?!” Bin’s shocked shouting rings around in Dongmin’s head painfully.

“No- no I- I-” Dongmin presses a hand to his mouth, feeling sick to his stomach again. This time painfully so. That can’t be true. He saved him. He stopped Bin. Sanha should have been able to escape. He had a plan, Dongmin had made it. It wasn’t _perfect_  sure. It hadn’t needed to be, when Sanha would never use it, but it still should have- Sanha should have-

“Eunwoo?!”

Dongmin rushes into the bathroom attached to his room, and throws up.

Did he make the wrong choice, focusing on Bin?

“Eunwoo are you okay?”

“Sanha _died_ , of course I’m not.”

“I didn’t realize- I- I understand. I didn’t know you were so close to him.”

He wasn’t, that’s exactly the problem. Dongmin sits on the floor, hands gripping onto his shirt. “Sorry, I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

He doesn’t feel fine, either. But how could he explain this to Bin? What could he say?

“Hey, Eunwoo?” Bin sits beside him, shoulders knocking together. Dongmin nods. “You asked why I signed up for this game, right?”

“Yeah.” He knew the answer, though.

“My parents were in a car crash. It was really bad, and I gave up a majority of my college fund to pay their medical bills. Not sure how they’d feel about that- they haven’t woke up- but they were the only people in my life I could still trust. So I signed up for this hoping I could recover some of that, and have enough to keep paying their bills.”

It’s all information Dongmin knows, but listening to it in Bin’s oddly calm tone gives him something to focus on. Something _else_ to focus on. “I’m sorry, about your parents.” Bin will never understand how much he means that.

“Thank you.” Bin places a hand on Dongmins arm, pulling his hand away from his shirt and wrapping his own hands around it. Dongmin stares ahead, at the wall, and breathes a sigh.

“I didn’t want to be here.”

“Eunwoo?”

“Dongmin.”

“What?” Dongmin feels Bin flinch at that, tense in the realization he’s been lied to.

“My name. It’s not- Eunwoo is my pen name.” Dongmin breathes a humorless laugh. “I didn’t want to be here. Never thought I would be. I was going to leave, but I wanted- I hoped I could keep everyone safe.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know, sorry. I don’t know what I’m saying.” Dongmin forces himself to stand. “I’m going to the common area. Maybe the others are there.” He knows Myungjun and Minhyuk wont be. Jinwoo should be, though.

Dongmin leaves the room, barely aware of Bin following after him. When they reach the common area, Jinwoo is aimlessly wandering the kitchen. He seems distraught, searching for distraction. Bin calls out to him, before Dongmin can, and he turns the face the pair with an expression that’s blank. Any emotion is buried too far for Dongmin to see.

“Hey, Eunwoo, Bin.”

“Are you okay?” Dongmin asks, already knowing the answer. He didn't need to create Jinwoo, to know the answer to that.

“No.” Jinwoo sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “I just wonder- if I had talked to Sanha more, or tried to help him-”

“I know how you feel.” Dongmin stares at the floor. Bin pats him on the shoulder, somehow the best at keeping himself together, despite likely being the closest to Sanha of the three.

“If I had the chance I would try, at least.” Jinwoo laughs unhappily. “Wouldn’t you, Eunwoo?”

“Yea-” Dongmin’s head fills with sharp pain all at once, cutting him off. He grabs at his head, vision blurring.

If he could try again, would he?

Would he?

Would that option be better?

“Eunwoo?”

“Dongmin?”

_Wouldn’t you?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WOULD YOU LIKE TO TRY AGAIN** or **CONTINUE AS IS?**
> 
> This outcome for this path was decided before I asked for the vote, but then you voted for it and I was like, "but my boy"  
> so I decided to give you this option :)  
> it also actually plays better into the story I want to tell than the original way I planned did, so there's that.
> 
> unrelated but firstly all night is SO GOOD  
> and also WHO ALLOWED ASTRO TO HAVE A SONG CALLED "Role Play" and why. I just wanna talk.


	4. Third Try

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> today on: I didn't mean for this chapter to be so long
> 
> y'all know the majority vote was to try again.

Dongmin wakes with a pounding head, in his room. His room in the game’s building, that is. It’s early morning, and his room has been cleaned of any signs of the night before. Food, water, missing. For a moment, he’s confused how he got back- had he passed out? Who cleaned up the room? Any thoughts are pushed aside when his stomach complains loudly about a lack of food. Breathing a sigh, he forces himself to stand and make his way down the hall, to the common area and kitchen.

Bin is there, again sitting on the couch and staring at a book. Not reading, if the lack of movement in his eyes is any indication. Dongmin is going to question this- ask if he’s alright- but sound from the kitchen draws his attention.

Sanha. Sanha is there, shifting through cupboards. A sharp pain goes through Dongmin’s head, and things click into place. Nobody moved him, or cleaned up his room. None of that had _happened_  yet. _Wouldn’t you?_  The words echo around in his head, his answer clear as when Jinwoo had asked. _Yes_. Of course he would try to change things.

He wanted to save them. All of them. Saving Sanha was the only reason he hadn’t escaped himself. With this in his mind, Dongmin takes sure steps towards the kitchen. As much has he would be sad to lose the trust he gained with Bin, he had to do this. He couldn’t just ignore the opportunity given to him.

“Good morning, Sanha.”

“Oh!” Sanha turns to Dongmin, startled. Then he gives a small smile, oblivious to the fact he’s going to die. _No_ , he wont this time. “Hey!”

“Find anything?” Dongmin is vaguely aware of someone- Bin- looking at him. Then he hears Bin stand, and leave. Had choosing not to talk to the other made him already changed the way he was acting?

“Cereal?” Sanha reaches for a box, and turns to show it to Dongmin. Whether it’s off-brand, or just a brand that doesn’t exist in the real world, Dongmin isn’t sure. Still, it’s food and really he just needed an excuse to talk to the other. That, and he really was in need of food.

“Seems good,” Dongmin says, and Sanha nods in response.

“I thought so too!” Sanha puts the box back down, going in search of bowls. Dongmin takes the moment to actually consider what he has to do.

Make sure Sanha actually escapes, that’s for sure. Get Sanha to trust his intentions enough to let Dongmin help in the first place. Assure that Sanha and Bin don’t have any sort of confrontation. Gaining Sanha’s trust might just be easier than Gaining Bin’s was. The other doesn’t have a history of broken trust- no childhood of betrayals, like he’d given Bin- so he’s more willing to trust others. But, then, Sanha is also nervous enough about their situation that it still wont be easy. Unless he immediately establishes a reason Sanha should believe in him, it might be difficult.

Sanha is in the process of pouring cereal into bowls, when Dongmin speaks again. “Hey, Sanha?”

“Yeah, Eunwoo?”

“I have a friend, around your age.” _And he’s you, and he’s dead,_  Dongmin doesn’t say. Sanha isn’t actually much younger than Dongmin is, only a few years, but he’s young enough still, for this line of thought to work.

“Oh?”

“Which, I know, doesn’t really mean anything. But you already remind me a lot of him, and if anything happened to him I don’t know what I’d do.” He has to establish a reason he’s on Sanha’s side, before he can deal with anything else. “So I- well I really don’t want anything to happen to you, either, because of that. Sorry if that’s… odd.”

“It’s okay.” Sanha hums, considering Dongmin’s words. “I think I get it. But you don’t have to worry, I’m going to escape first chance I get!”

That is why he’s worried. Dongmin nods, however, trying not to appear concerned. “Okay. Well, when either your or my days come up, I’ll help you escape.”

“Really?” Sanha’s tone betrays his uncertainty. Confusion.

“Yeah. I don’t want anything to happen to _anyone_ , honestly, but because of my friend I can’t help but worry about you specifically.”

“Well,” Sanha starts, shifting his weight back and forth between legs, “then I’ll take whatever help I can get. I’m glad everyone’s so nice this game.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah there’s nobody like that guy from the last season,” Sanha says. He makes his way towards the fridge and Dongmin only then realizes Sanha has gotten _both_  of them food. “You know the one that was like, “I’m going to be the only one who survives,” and immediately killed someone? Hated watching him.”

Sanha talks about previous games as if they weren’t real people. Like they were characters, who’s traits could be passed off as just something to dislike. Not like they were real, dangerous, people. Dongmin should be used to that, after talking to Bin, but it’s still unsettling. A reminder of how normal this game is to people.

“Yeah,” Dongmin says, finally. “Wasn’t a big fan myself.”

“I was actually kinda glad when- uh- I don’t remember his name? The other contestant that used their day to get rid of him? When that happened.”

“R-right. Me too.” If Sanha notices his hesitance, he doesn’t point it out.

They have further conversation in the common area, over bowls of cereal. Talk about things unrelated to the game, about there lives. Sanha graduated, recently. Barely eligible to enter the game. He can play, and likes to play, the guitar. Is actually disappointed their only pass times are books and CD’s. Sanha isn’t sure what he’s going to do with his life, yet, and Dongmin assure him that’s fine. He’ll have plenty of time to think about it once he makes it out of this game. Alive.

Dongmin listens, adding things on occasion. He knows all of this about Sanha, of course. Wrote it all, after all. He knows why Sanha is here, too, even if Sanha doesn’t explain it. That he wants the prize to assure he and his parents don’t lose their home.

 

Day 3, Tuesday. Dongmin leaves his room earlier in the morning, this time, unable to rest properly. He’s already messed up once, so he has to figure something out. Something more solid than the vague ideas he’s had before. He runs into Bin, in the hallway, and has to hold back the too-friendly greeting that nearly tumbles it’s way out.

“Good morning.” Dongmin’s greeting still get’s a frown from Bin, who looks at him oddly.

“I heard your conversation with Sanha.” Dongmin is startled by the statement. He’d though Bin left, when the conversation started, but maybe he hadn’t gone far.

“Oh?”

“How can you trust that he actually is going to escape?”

Because it’s happened twice. Dongmin sighs. “I want to. If I spend all my time scared one of you is going to attack, I wont survive anyway.”

Bin doesn’t say anything else, in response. Instead he returns to his room, leaving Dongmin confused. He doesn’t have time to think about that too much, however. He needs a plan.

Step one: figure out an escape route. Sanha had only vague ideas of escape, as he never risked leaving the game grounds before his day, but that clearly wasn’t good enough. If Dongmin wanted to be sure Sanha could escape, they needed a better idea of the layout.

Which meant risking security and his own life to check. Dongmin hesitates, once he’s outside. Standing at the edge of the game’s grounds. He made the game, though. Should be able to remember enough to avoid danger. Right?

Dongmin forces himself forward, climbing the metal fence that surround the area. The building sat at the top of a hill. At the bottom of the hill, there’s a bridge. Once across that, contestants have escaped, and are no longer in danger. The area between the building and the bridge is filled with trees and rocks. Luckily it’s not winter, so there’s no snow or ice to worry about or hide danger. There is, however, still security. People tasked with stopping- read: killing- anyone who tries to escape. They aren’t very serious about their jobs, leaving enough leeway to make escaping a viable option, but they’re still deadly. Armed and waiting for someone to try.

Dongmin knows their routes, a detail he far over-thought when planning his story- but lining their routes up with a path towards the bridge is another thing altogether. Dongmin makes it about halfway down the hill- a distance far enough that even shouting he’d barely be able to hear anyone from inside the game’s grounds- when a gunshot rings out around him. Flinching, he ducks against a tree.

So maybe he hadn’t perfectly memorized their schedules. Good to know. Dongmin breathes out, shaky just like his legs have become, and notes how this off-sets the schedule he thought he knew. Focuses on that instead of the fact that even if he tries to return to the game’s grounds, he still risks being shot at.

If he died here, would it be real? Would he go back, again? Or would that be it?

What about his life, in the real world?

Dongmin shakes his head, and the thoughts away with it. He _wont_  die. Wont test that aspect of his situation. If he did, then Sanha definitely wouldn’t make it out of here.

He takes a deep breath, and then sprints back towards the game grounds. He narrowly avoids being shot, just as he reaches the fence, and Dongmin is pretty sure he’s never moved faster in his entire life. He collapses on the ground, lungs desperate for air.

“What the _hell_ , Eunwoo?” Bin’s voice rings around in Dongmin’s head. Oh, right, he’s outside. No, wait, that’s tomorrow. Then what’s he doing here?

“What happened?!” Sanha’s voice reaches a pitch that’s painfully high. He drops down beside Dongmin, concern in his every movement.

“Nothing; everything’s fine.”

“Were you trying to leave already?!”

“Of course not.” Dongmin’s voice holds a certainty he doesn’t actually feel. “But when that time comes we can’t just go into it blind.”

That’s how people die. That’s how _you_  die, Dongmin thinks.

“But- you- are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Dongmin nods, sitting up to face the other two.

Bin eyes Dongmin, frowning, but doesn’t speak. Sanha’s voice forces Dongmin to ignore that. “Did you learn anything?”

“Yeah.” Dongmin forces a smile onto his face, turning to Sanha. “I’ll tell you what I learned later, okay?”

“Okay!”

“You two are really just openly plotting to work together, huh?” Bin’s tone is odd, suspicious in a way Dongmin isn’t sure the source of. They were planning to escape, and openly. What was Bin so bothered by?

“Plotting? We aren’t criminals. We just want to survive, what’s wrong with that?” The harshness in Sanha’s voice catches both Dongmin and Bin off guard. The latter frown, before spinning on his heel and leaving. “What’s his issue?”

“I don’t know.” Dongmin sighs. An entire week of gaining trust really had disappeared just like that. Sighing, Dongmin throws an arm around Sanha’s shoulders. “We shouldn’t worry about it. There are more important things to focus on.”

“Right.”

More important things ends up just being normal conversation. Dongmin and Sanha end up back in the common area, talking about music. Sanha is easier to talk to, despite the looming anxiety about his fate crawling in Dongmin’s chest. His voice is soft, when he’s not being excessively loud, and he talks openly about his life outside of the game. Friends, family, interest. It’s no wonder, honestly, that he ends up so popular. Sure, Dongmin had written that to be the case, but Sanha felt far more fitting in that role now, seeing him like this, than he had when he was lines on a page.

This was the kid Dongmin had let die twice, huh?

“Hey, once we’re both out of here…” Sanha trails off, eyes meeting Dongmin’s. Sanha swings his legs back and forth from where he sits on the couches armrest.

“Yeah?”

“Want to hang out?” The uncertainty in his tone pushes painfully at Dongmins’ head. Is it uncertainty about making it out of here, or Dongmin wanting to spend time with him when they weren’t in the game?

“Sure.” Dongmin isn’t sure that will actually be possible, but if it was, he would. “Is everything okay?”

“I’m… scared.”

“Oh.” It shouldn’t be surprising, not really. But, somehow, Dongmin hadn’t even considered that. Thought Sanha not knowing his own fate would mean he didn’t think about the danger.

“Just… what if it takes weeks for either of us to have our days? If- if someone decides to start killing will- will we be okay?”

That isn’t a concern, in reality. Sanha is the first to get his day, but he doesn’t know that. Dongmin can’t say that. “It’ll be okay.”

“Can you be sure of that?”

“I’ll make sure of that.”

Sanha pauses, stares at the ground. “Even if it’s just because I remind you of someone else… thank you.”

 

Day 4. Dongmin avoids going outside, this time, and searches for Sanha in the afternoon. He knows Sanha wont be seriously planning until he knows he’ll be the one able to use his points, at the end of the week, so Dongmin spends the early parts of the day trying to remember the exact setup of the building, escape route, and security. Then, he finds Sanha laying on the ground in the common area, shuffling through CD’s.

“Sanha?”

“Hey.” Sanha raises a hand in greeting, then sets a CD down. “Are you bored too?”

It’s difficult to be bored when he’s so anxious. Despite this, Dongmin nods. “A bit.”

“This almost makes me miss school.” Sanha’s tone is one step away from whining, and Dongmin laughs.

“Me too, honestly.” Somehow college was actually less stressful than this. “College finally beats something else. _Huh_.”

Sanha laughs, sitting up. “Hey, Bin said basically the same thing.”

Dongmin flinches. Right, those two were meant to get along, before Bin- no, it doesn’t mater. Dongmin shakes his head. “You two talking? After yesterday I wasn’t so sure you would.”

“Yeah.” Sanha nods. “I was surprised too. Honestly I thought he hated me or something.”

“I think he just doesn’t trust us.”

“Same thing.” With that, Sanha stands up. “Alright, that’s enough! We’re starting to sound way too serious. Let’s talk about something else. You like dogs?”

“Of course I do.”

“Good, good. I had some serious concerns about us working together if you didn’t.”

“I’m offended you even considered I could not like dogs.”

“I apologize.”

 

“Hey, Eunwoo?” Sanha asks, staring at the ceiling rather than Dongmin.

“Yeah?”

“So you were in college?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you have a job?”

“I make comics.”

“Oh.” Sanha sits up normally, from his previously upside-down position. “Anything interesting?”

“I- uh- I don’t know about that. What brought this up?”

“I was thinking about what I was going to do, again. I know you’re _supposed_  to go to college, but I don’t know what I want to do, even if I did.” Breathing a heavy sigh, Sanha leans back against the couch. “You know?”

He does. Dongmin had started writing the comic Sanha and the other belong to _because_ he didn’t know what to do with himself. He’d been drawing a long time before that, of course. Long enough to have a almost-consistent style. It just happened that his first real comic wasn’t terrible. And the one that came after that- the one he was now a part of- was even better.

“I said before, didn’t I? It’s okay not to know what you want to do. I don’t either, really.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Sanha frowns. “Well it wont matter unless I escape here.”

“You will.”

“You keeps saying so.” Sanha laughs. “I know. I will. For sure, right?”

“Right.”

 

Day 5 comes too soon. The note announcing their rankings- and that Sanha will be the one able to use his points- somehow surprising despite Dongmin knowing it was coming. They’re the same, the rankings, which does surprise Dongmin. Did nothing he did change that?

Did anything he did matter at all?

“It’s me?” Sanha’s voice draws Dongmin away from that line of thinking. It has to matter. “I’m…”

“Sanha?”

Sanha’s head snaps in Dongmin’s direction, eyes wide. Then, all at once, Sanha moves towards him and is pulling him out of the room. Back towards Sanha’s room. “We have to start planning!”

Dongmin already has. Still, he nods, and follows Sanha. The other’s room is already somehow a mess, paper and his blankets haphazardly strewn around the room. For a second, Dongmin stumbles at the sight, far too reminded of his room, outside of the game. How he found it, before waking up here.

“So I’ve got some basic idea, but I don’t know if they’re any good?’

“Let’s talk about them, then.” Dongmin and Sanha sit on the latter’s bed, going over the half-made plans Sanha had.

Sanha has a lot of plans that amount to, “get armor? Don’t die?” Which, Dongmin thinks, aren’t the worst plans he’s ever seen. He’s pretty fond of the not dying part of the plan, honestly. But they aren’t _good_  either. He knows, over the next day and a half, Sanha will come up with a far more solid- but flawed- plan. But if he can push Sanha in the right direction, quicker, and make the plan better? Then that’s one less risk.

“Sanha.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to figure out the security schedule, so we can choose a good time for you to leave.”

“For me to leave…”

“Yeah?”

“You… you should come with me.” Sanha looks up, away from the half-formed plans- and meets Dongmin’s eyes. There’s a surprising amount of certainty in them.

“Sanha-”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“What?”

“If the plan works, we can both go!” Sanha offers a smile, and Dongmin can only nod.

“Okay, I’ll go with you.” If only so he can keep Sanha safe, for longer.

“And when we get out of here, we can hang out and you can introduce me to your friend I remind you of.”

“Yeah, of course.” It’s getting easier to lie. “Once we’re out of here, I’ll introduce you.”

 

Dongmin isn’t surprised when Jinwoo shows up in Sanha’s room, asking the two to join everyone in the common area. The one meal they’ll all get to have together, no matter what happens. Sanha and Myungjun are loud, energetic, just as they were the first time. Sanha, sitting to Dongmin’s left, leans against him to laugh at something Minhyuk has said. It’s familiar, a near repeat of the last time.

“You know, theoretically all of us could make it out of here,” Jinwoo says. Dongmin nods, waits for Bin’s response.

“Yeah assuming everyone wants that to happen.” It’s different, and Dongmin should have expected that. Sanha, beside him, gives an annoyed huff.

“Of course we do.”

“Yeah, guys, let’s be optimistic.” At Jinwoo’s words, Myungjun nods, throwing an arm around the other.

“Yeah! Jinwoo is right.”

“Even if we do, we still have to survive leaving.” Minhyuks words, though expected, make Dongmin flinch. They still have to survive, right. Sanha still has to survive escaping. Or else what has Dongmin been doing?

“We will!” Sanha knocks his shoulder against Dongmin’s. “Right?”

“Yeah.”

“See!”

“You’re just assuming-”

“We will.” Jinwoo’s words cut Bin off.

“You’re so _certain_  about that, huh?”

“I want to be.”

“Bin-” Dongmin doesn’t actually know what he wants to say- “we’d all rather escape.”

“And once we’re all out of here, we can have another dinner together.” Sanha grins, and Myungjun gives his agreement. Bin looks away from the group, frowning.

“Even if we try, you don’t know you’ll survive.” And then he leaves. Sanha frowns.

“What’s up with him?” Myungjun asks, a frown that mirrors Sanha’s on his face.

Instead of Dongmin, Sanha is the one to speak. “I’m sure he has a reason… I just wish he wouldn’t…”

“It’s okay,” Dongmin says, drawing Sanha’s attention. “He’ll have to believe that, after Saturday.”

“Right!”

 

Day 6. As expected, everyone is preoccupied with preparing. Sanha closes himself in his room, planning, after Dongmin assures him he’ll figure out the security schedule. Minhyuk and Bin are having a conversation, when Dongmin passes through the common room. Jinwoo and Myungjun must have already had breakfast together, because they’re nowhere to be seen. Dongmin makes his way outside, but he doesn’t plan to actually leave the game area. He doesn’t have to.

He knows the schedule. Has gone over the numbers time and time again. Dongmin should know at least this much about something he created. All he needs is to have spent a believable amount of time away from Sanha, that the other will believe him.

Two hours of sitting outside, doing nothing, is how he spends part of his day. Deciding that’s probably enough to convince Sanha he’s actually gone out and come back, he returns inside.

Sanha is in the common room, waiting. And- Dongmin has to do a double-take to process the other person in his view. Bin is in the kitchen, gathering supplies.

“Eunwoo, you’re back!” Sanha jumps to his feet, drawing Dongmin’s attention away from Bin.

“Yeah!” Dongmin nods. “I think I’ve got all the information I need, but I’m going to have to write it down to be sure I’ve got it.”

“Okay. That’s great, then.” Sanha makes his way towards the hall. “I’ll be back with paper!”

Dongmin wants to say that he could just go with Sanha, but something else is bothering him. So he nods, watches Sanha go, and then turns towards Bin.

“Bin?”

“What?” The glance he spares Dongmin his short.

“What are you… doing?”

“Getting supplies? I’m not leaving my room tomorrow.” Which would make sense if it wasn’t _Bin_  doing it. “What’s that look for?”

“Huh?” Dongmin shakes his head. “No- nothing.”

Bin leave, supplies in hand- or in containers, actually- just as Sanha returns.

“I’ve acquired paper!”

“Right, thanks.” Dongmin nods, and gets to work writing out a schedule for the games security.

Had he changed something without realizing it?

 

Sanha returns to his room, before midnight, to take a nap. Knows he’ll need all his energy to escape. Dongmin tries to do the same, but he finds himself laying awake until the announcement that violence is allowed plays. In fourteen hours, Sanha plans to leave. Just after 2 in the afternoon. That’s enough time to have gotten his supplies from the games runners, and be awake enough to leave. Dongmin hadn’t been able to convince Sanha to leave earlier in the day. If he pushed the issue too much, it would have been suspicious, so he’d just have to deal with it.

Apparently Bin wouldn’t be an issue, anyway. Dongmin sighs. Had this really been so simple all along? If he had done this in the first place, would he not have had to do this again?

Sanha’s only given supplies is a bulletproof vest. It’s one thing, and all of his points, but that’s one less large concern. His head was still an issue- and the original way he’d died, anyway- but Sanha was just a bit safer this way. Dongmin didn’t have anything, something Sanha had been worried about. He’d wanted to do something else, rework the plan, to make sure Dongmin would be safer, too, but Dongmin had talked him out of that.

Keeping Sanha alive was the priority, and Dongmin wasn’t all that worried about himself. Maybe he _should_  be, but he wasn’t.

 

Afternoon comes too quickly, and before he knows it Sanha is racing into Dongmin’s room, ready to leave.

They make it halfway down the hill, before anything of concern happens. Here, they have to wait exactly two minutes, before they can move on. Before it’s safe to. Sanha is pressed against a tree, waiting with clear anxiousness. Dongmin finds himself oddly calm. Without any way to actually tell the time, they have to count. Which is a concern, but Dongmin tries to focus on that. Steady seconds, beats, counting in his head until it reaches 120.

“Let’s go,” Dongmin whispers to Sanha, who gives a small nod. They continue forward, careful of the rocks and trees. The biggest concern is making it through their plotted path in the time they have. (The few minutes where security is loose enough for them to escape.)

And they don’t.

Sanha is grabbing his arm almost as soon as Dongmin has processed the ringing sound of a gunshot. It’s not a fatal wound, but Sanha stumbles and lands on the ground, rocks becoming more of an inconvenience when his attention is elsewhere.

Dongmin has all of two seconds to figure out what to do, none of which are any use. His body moves while he’s still unable to think, pulling Sanha to his feet none too gently. They have to keep moving. They can’t turn back, and they can’t stand still. Dongmin pushes Sanha forward, hands on the other’s back, until Sanha starts running again.

In the corner of his panicked vision, Dongmin can see one member of security, and he acts without thinking. They’re close enough to the bottom of the hill. It’s only a few feet after that. Sanha can make it. So he Dongmin grabs Sanha, grabs his head, and pushes them forward. They roll harshly, Dongmin’s head spinning with what he wouldn’t be surprised to hear was a concussion. Sanha, startled, shouts his name when they come to a stop.

“Eunwoo?!”

“I’m fine.” He stands, wobbling, and pushes Sanha to move again. “Keep going.”

“But-”

“I’m coming, just go!” He’s not, though. Sanha nods, running, but Dongmin’s legs give out on him. Sanha turns back to look at him, just as he’s crossed the bridge, and horror fills his face when he realizes Dongmin isn’t with him. Realizes how far he is. Sanha takes a step, back towards him, but is stopped by a sudden rush of staff for the game.

“Eunwoo is-”

“Once you’ve left the grounds you can’t go back.” One voice says, cutting Sanha off. Dongmin can barely hear them, and grips his head.

What happens if he dies here?

A hand grips his arm, pulls Dongmin to his feet. His legs shake, and he struggles to process what’s happening. Was he captured by security? Why?

“Dongmin?” No, that voice is familiar. “Hey?”

A number of members of security fill the space between Dongmin and the exit. Between him and Sanha. He can’t escape like this, even if he wanted. At once, he’s being pulled back. Struggling to keep up as he’s pull back up hill, into the trees. Blocked from the view of the security members, but too confused to really process anything else.

Had the person pulling him said his name?

Dongmin wakes in his room, again. For a moment, he wonders if he went back again. Did he fail in some way, again? But then his head pounds, and when he reaches up to it, he can feel cloth wrapped around it.

“You’re awake.” Bin’s voice draws Dongmin’s attention. Startled by the other’s presence, Dongmin tries to sit up. Pain shoots through him, though, and he gives that up quickly.

“Bin? What happened?”

“Sanha escaped. Yesterday. He asked the staff to give you a note, here. I took it because you weren't awake.” Bin hands a envelope over. “Though I don’t know if you can read right now.”

“Maybe not.” Dongmin sighs. “I don’t- I don’t understand what happened?”

“You failed to escape, obviously.”

“Yes, but-”

“And we’re _friends_. So I went after you.”

“We are?”

“No… maybe not.”

“Bin… do you… know my name?”

“Yeah.” Bin nods. “You told me.”

“Did I? This time?”

“Not this time.”

“So it’s… not just me then.” Dongmin breathes a sigh. Bin remembered? Why? He hadn’t remembered the original series of events. Didn’t know he was meant to kill Sanha. What made him remember this time? Why just him?

“I don’t think the others do, because they all acted exactly the same.” Bin frowns. “I was confused, when Sanha was alive. And I was really confused when you talked to him, instead of me.”

Somehow, Dongmin thinks, it might be more confusing for Bin than it even is for Dongmin. “I wish I could say I knew what was happening. But, I’m confused to.”

“Sanha didn’t die,” Bin says, staring at his hands.

“Sanha didn’t die.” Dongmin gives a relieved sigh, closing his eyes. “That’s probably worth not understanding, huh?”

“Maybe.”

 

The next time Dongmin wakes, he’s in his room. His actual room, with pages of his comic strew around it and pens leaking ink onto his desk. He sits up from the floor, looks around him, and is distinctly aware that the clock reads the same time it did when he was last in it. Confused, Dongmin makes his way towards his desk. To the few pages still stacked up on it.

They’re different. They certainly aren’t the ones he drew. Starting with Sanha, post escape, and going onto the next week. The next events. Dongmin, unfamiliar with the events, looks over them intently. Some things are the same as when he originally wrote them, but Bin no longer being responsible for Sanha dying- Sanha being alive- has changed the finer details.

The thing that remains the same is the next death. Minhyuk killing Bin.

Dongmin drops the papers, and holds his head. He flinches, pulls his hand back, when he feels cloths wrapped around it. So it was _real_  then.

Then, Dongmin thinks, he should memorize the events on the pages. He has another death to stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No vote this chapter. next time there will be. Originally i planned to go into the event that would need to be voted on, but I honestly couldn't justify fitting it into this already too-long chapter.  
> so.  
> but bin remember? what could have caused that? There IS a specific cause, but that's all I'll say about it for now.


	5. What Hadn't Changed

The original plot, back when Sanha had died at Bin’s hands, went something like this:

_While Bin spent the most time with Sanha, in comparison to the others, Sanha spent the most time with Minhyuk. Due to this, they could be considered fairly close, by the time Sanha’s day came up. As much as they could be, with only a week knowing each other. Enough so, that Minhyuk was reasonably pissed off when the announcement was made that Sanha had died._

_When he found out Bin had done it._

_They didn’t talk, throughout the second week, and when they did it was to fight. It didn’t- couldn’t- escalate to violence, but everyone could see what was happening. Myungjun and Jinwoo’s attempts to stop the two from fighting did nothing, and when the second Friday rolled around, everyone knew something was bound to happen. They were in the middle of another argument, when the announcement violence was allowed went through the building._

_Minhyuk had killed Bin before he realized what he was doing. Stared down at Bin- face bleeding and disfigured from being slammed into the corner of a hallway- and then stared at his own hands. He panicked, then stumbled into Jinwoo’s room in tears._

**_“I killed Bin. I didn’t- I don’t-”_ **

_While no one had been exactly friendly towards Bin, since he’d killed Sanha, finding out he was dead hadn’t made anyone **happy** , either._

Dongmin, when he had written that series of events, hadn’t regretted it. Not like he had the first death. It had seemed like a logical progression, based on what had already happened. And the story wasn’t intended to be uplifting or have a _happy_  ending.

Now that he’s met them, though, that’s changed. He wants the story to have a happy ending. For everyone to make it out.

Something’s changed, in the version of the story he finds after waking back in his room. At first, he wonders if he’d been drawing without knowing. If he was hallucinating the events. But he wasn’t on any sort of medication, and he had a CO2 detector in his house, so he didn’t have CO2 poisoning. He ran over every other possible way he could have imagined it, and that anything that crossed over into reality could have been things he didn’t remember doing, but none made sense. Even if he had, the time not changing, but the story changing, didn’t add up.

It had to be real.

Still, it was strange. The story had changed, due to Dongmin’s influence, but he didn’t exist _in_  it. Not on the pages, at least. Bin not leaving his room, Sanha escaping, they happened without Dongmin’s influence, on paper. Bin never left the games grounds, because he didn’t need to retrieve Dongmin, but otherwise things played out the same, just without Dongmin being there. As if he hadn’t done anything. But he had. Had spoken to them, changed their fates.

Now he wondered if he could change the new way Minhyuk killing Bin played out.

 

_Sanha’s alive, so Minhyuk and Bin don’t have any reason to be at each other’s throats. They aren’t, actually. In fact, everyone is generally friendly, up until the last day. It’s Myungjun’s day, actually, just as it was originally. He, however, isn’t prepared to leave. Doesn’t have a plan. So he tells everyone that his day will pass without incident or worry. That he’s going to make sure nobody gets hurt._

_This doesn’t work. Bin, though having more faith in the others now, after seeing them not do anything the last week, is still unable to fully trust them._ A character trait Dongmin now regrets giving him so strongly. _Because of this, he makes an offhanded comment a little too close to midnight, and Minhyuk’s immediate response is to shove him._

_Not hard, not with the intention to kill him, but enough that Bin looses his balance._

_At the top of the staircase that leads to their rooms- or the hallway where they are, rather- and down to the bottom. Bin lands, just badly enough, just in the right way, to snap his neck._

_Minhyuk responds the way he did originally. Panicked, in tears, he goes to Jinwoo because he can’t go to **Myungjun**. Not when the other specifically wanted his day to pass without incident._

 

While the reason is different from the way Dongmin originally wrote it, the death still remains the same. He has to stop this, whether by erasing and drawing new pages, if he can’t go back, or by doing what he did before. Changing things as a participant.

He can’t assume that’s possible, though, so he reaches for a pen and piece of paper. Then, all at once, his vision blurs and he wakes in the game again. His room from it remains unchanged from before, but Bin looks down at him in concern.

“Oh thank god, you’re awake.”

“Huh?” Dongmin can’t seem to form any proper questions.

“You just passed out on me! I though your concussion was worse than we thought.”

“No, I’m okay.” Dongmin forces himself to sit up. It hurts more, in the game, than he had in the real world. He could pass his head pain off as whatever was causing this, so maybe his damage didn’t actually pass over too? So would he be okay if he died, here? Dongmin shakes his head, and the thought away with it. He can’t consider that.

“If you say so…” Bin sighs. “Do you need food? You haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

“I- uh, yeah.”

“Stay here, then. I’ll be right back.” With that, Bin turns to leave. Once he’s alone, Dongmin turns to the table next to his bed. To the letter from Sanha. Even with his head still pounding, Dongmin can’t help but be curious what Sanha actually said. After all, this is something that wasn’t in the story he read.

 

_If you’re able to read this, that means you're okay, right? That’s good! I was really scared when you didn’t make it out, but as long as you’re alive there’s still a chance. Thank Bin for me, for helping you, okay? I’ll be watching the show, and waiting for all of you to make it out!!!_

_Then we can all hang out like we said._

_-Sanha_

 

It’s a simple note, but it feels Dongmin with an immeasurable amount of relief. Sanha was safe. Definitely, indisputably.

Now he had to make sure the same way true for Bin.

Considering the fact that Minhyuk and Bin seem incapable of not fighting, so long as they’re in the game, he doesn’t think it’s worth it to try and improve their friendship. They got along fine, most of the time, anyway. It was only when Bin was showing his lack of trust, or already having upset the other, that things went wrong. Minhyuk was too used to fighting being his first option- a result of his backstory Dongmin regrets, now that it’s causing this- for him not to respond in such a way.

Since he can’t change either of these things- these traits he’d given them- the better options was to keep them away from each other when the day came. If it wasn’t for the fact only Bin had any idea about Dongmin knowing more than he should, he would ask Jinwoo or Myungjun to keep an eye on one of them, and focus on the other himself. That wasn’t really possible, as it would raise too many questions about why he thought it was necessary, so that forced him to consider other options.

He thinks about telling Bin the truth. Or, rather, telling him that he’s going to die, if he doesn’t listen to Dongmin, and hope that already existing experience will make Bin listen. But, then, would that actually help? If Bin knew Minhyuk was going to kill him, his already existent distrust might just make things _worse_. So Dongmin crosses that option off his mental list.

Then, he could try to make sure one of them weren’t around by the end of the week. If one of them escaped, then it wouldn’t matter. They couldn’t fight if one of them had left.

The question was, which of them should he get to escape? Minhyuk and Dongmin had barely spoken, so he might be harder to convince. Though Dongmin having already helped Sanha might work to help convince him. Bin, on the other hand, might grow suspicious if Dongmin tells him he should escape. After all, he knows Dongmin has changed events before. If Dongmin says Bin has to escape, he’ll likely believe him, but would he just let it go without making Dongmin tell him _why_  he had to leave?

Bin would be easier to convince at first, but Minhyuk would be less suspicious of Dongmin once he was convinced.

“What am I going to do?” Dongmin mutters to himself, breathing a heavy sigh. He has to make some sort of choice.

When the door opens, and Bin returns with food, Dongmin decides. He knows which path he’ll choose this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should Dongmin **Help Bin Escape** or **Help Minhyuk Escape**?
> 
> he just can't catch a break, can he? this is what you get for making you characters murder each other, eunwoo.  
> i say, technically the one who did it.


	6. Another Week

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Majority voted: Help Minhyuk Escape

As much as it would take more effort to get Minhyuk to trust him, Dongmin still believes that helping him escape is the better option. Bin would catch on that something was up too quickly, if Dongmin were trying to make him escape, and that could make everything more difficult. That, and having someone around who was at least slightly aware of what was going on, made him feel better about the situation. It was selfish. Dongmin knows that not helping Bin leave, for that reason, is more about his own wants than anything, but that didn’t change what he was going to do.

Get Minhyuk to trust him enough that he’ll leave before the next Saturday. That he’ll leave despite it being someone else’s day.

That meant figuring out how to do that, however. Which brought with it more problems. He’d helped Sanha escape, and he was sure he could use that as an example of why he knew enough to help, but he, himself, had also gotten badly hurt because of that. The latter of which might make Minhyuk doubt him. Even more than that was the fact that Dongmin knowing how to help him escape, didn’t mean Minhyuk would listen. Due to Dongmin’s presence, Minhyuk and Sanha had spent less time with each other- and thus weren’t as close- than they had originally. It was entirely possible Minhyuk wouldn’t _care_  that Dongmin was personally responsible for Sanha escaping.

Worse, still, was that it was the second week. While they hadn’t had anything to do, during the first week, leaving them without anything to do for however long the game went on would be boring. So, during the second week and onward, they had small- not deadly- games. A use for the meeting room they all first arrived at. They weren’t particularly important. Just small games made more for entertaining people watching, than for the participants. Which gave them less time to have the normal conversations that had let Bin and Sanha trust Dongmin.

The more he thought about it, the more worried Dongmin was that he would end up wasting his time again. Yet, he knew he had to try. He couldn’t just leave thing as they were, and Bin knew too much to just blindly go along with whatever Dongmin’s plan was.

Actually, the more Dongmn thinks about it, the more of an obstacle Bin is. Not because he would do anything, himself, but just by being around. If the person who trusted others the least, suddenly trusted someone he barely talked to, that would be suspicious, right? If Minhyuk thinks that Dongmin and Bin are suspicious, that might ruin everything. So he needs Bin to interact with him less. Needs Minhyuk to think they’re only as close as would makes sense.

Maybe he could tell Bin that Minhyuk was the one who would die, if they he doesn’t escape. Another lie on top of the many he’d already told wouldn’t mean much, would it? If he explained that, convinced Bin it would help them if Dongmin didn’t talk to Bin as much, he would listen, wouldn’t he?

 

When Monday morning rolls around, Dongmin thinks he has a plan. Step one: convince Bin that Minhyuk needed to escape. Dongmin’s still in a lot of pain, from rolling down that hill, but forces himself to leave his room. He’d have to, anyway, when the game’s staff started forcing them to participate in more games. He finds Bin, unsurprisingly, reading in the common area. Actually reading, this time. That same book Dongmin still had a mental note to avoid.

“Bin?”

“You’re up.” Bin sets his book aside, sitting up straighter. “You okay to be?”

“Yeah, I thinks so.” Dongmin takes a seat on the other side of the couch. The others aren’t around, and Dongmin is distinctly aware of where all of them must be, right about now. “Hey…”

“What’s wrong?”

“I- uh- I think Minhyuk is going to… I think we need to help Minhyuk escape.” For some reason, it’s harder to lie. To say Minhyuk is going to die, when in reality he’s going to be the murderer.

“Remember something I don’t?”

“Yeah.” Dongmin nods, and Bin frowns. After a minute, where Bin seems to consider what Dongmin’s said, he nods.

“Okay. After what happened to Sanha, I’ll believe you. What now, then?” Bin’s voice is quiet, likely thinking too much about the fact they’re being watched. Dongmin wonders if it would actually matter, if people heard them. The participants of the game, sure, but anyone else? Would that affect anything? It wasn’t like they wouldn’t have heard, already, if anything. Their rooms aren’t any more private than the common area.

“If we both try to convince him to leave, though, I think it’d be suspicious. I think I can convince him, but…”

“But?”

“I just wanted to warn you. I think- if we’re suddenly really close without reason, it’d look weird, and he might not trust me.”

“Yeah I probably wouldn’t either.” Bin nods, again. “Okay. I’ll continue to act like I don’t trust you.”

“Act, huh.” Dongmin finds himself oddly glad that he’d messed up, the first time. Even if he had to redo things, to save Sanha, it wasn’t for nothing.

“Yeah.”

 

The next step was gaining Minhyuks trust- or friendship, maybe- in order to help him escape. Dongmin doesn’t really know how to go about this, honestly. He can’t repeat what he did with Sanha- pretending to have a friend he reminds Dongmin of- since Minhyuk would definitely realize that wasn’t true. Besides, even if Minhyuk and Sanha hadn’t interacted as much, it was still possible he’d heard about that from Sanha. The method he took with Bin wouldn’t work, either, since he needed to actively change what Minhyuk did, rather than just prepare for when things went the same.

Either way, he should probably _talk_  to Minhyuk, before anything else.

The opportunity to talk to the other doesn’t come until that afternoon when their, “host,” tells them to gather in the meeting room. Their "game" for the day can be simply described as a competition of who can scream the loudest. That’s not how the staff would- or did- describe it, but that’s what it boils down to. Minhyuk, upon realizing this, says simply, “well obviously Myungjun will win.”

The part of Dongmin that had a head injury wants no part in it whatsoever, but another part of him, the competitive part, speaks before he can think. “I can beat him.”

“D- Eunwoo?!” Bin turns to him, startled.

“You have a head injury,” Jinwoo reminds him. However he’s well aware of that, and Dongmin can’t back down now that he’s _said_  it.

“You’re on!” Myungjun grins.

Dongmin doesn’t win. Not only does Myungjun beat him, but Minhyuk does too. Still, it’s probably worth it for the image of their faces as they try to be as loud as possible.

“So, you could beat him, huh?” Minhyuk teases, while Myungjun cheers for his victory. The situation is unsettlingly friendly, with all of them. A stark contrast to how things were originally, at this point. To how Dongmin originally wrote things.

“I underestimated how loud you two could be.” Dongmin turns fully to Minhyuk. “I’m surprised you tried so much, if you were sure you wouldn’t win.”

“I had to beat you, at least. You’re injured.”

“Wow, thanks.” Dongmin rolls his eyes, but regrets it when a sharp pain goes through his head. Maybe screaming while he had a head injury really _was_  a bad idea. Who would have thought?

“Don’t hurt yourself, man.”

Dongmin gives a small nod, and looks to see what the others are doing. Myungjun is laughing about something, though Dongmin has no idea what. Jinwoo is frowning, though it’s nearly more of a pout, and Bin is shaking his head. None of them are paying attention to Dongmin and Minhyuk.

Now would be a good time to- “Hey, Eunwoo?”

Or Minhyuk could speak first. “Yeah?”

“Why did you… get so hurt helping Sanha? You could have left him on his own, when he got shot.”

“I…” Dongmin wants to question how Minhyuk knew about that, but it’s possible he’d heard about it when Dongmin was unconscious. More importantly, Dongmin thinks, is that this question is a chance. “I couldn’t just leave him to die. I want everyone to make it out of here. I mean, at first I wanted to escape, too, but once I was there, I couldn’t do that.”

It’s mostly true. Minhyuk nods, expression difficult to read. Then, he meets Dongmin’s eyes. “Then are you not going to leave, at the end of this week? Or before then?”

“No,” Dongmin says, for once fully certain in his words. “In fact, you’re the youngest now, you know?”

“Uh- yeah?”

“So my instincts to help naturally would shift to you,” Dongmin’s joking, mostly. But part of him _does_  want to protect Minhyuk. Though not from dying so much as from killing someone else. “So if you want my help, you could leave this week.”

“Yeah, right.” Minhyuk turns away, clearly not convinced. Which is fine. Dongmin has to accept this wont be as simple as it was with Sanha. “Maybe I want to be here.”

He doesn’t. Dongmin knows he doesn’t. But, Minhyuk had come here for a reason. Signed up for this game for a reason. And Dongmin knows that must be why he’s saying that. Why he refused to have faith they would all survive.

 

The next day they don’t have anything to do. If they had tasks everyday, there would be no chance for the drama the game runners likely wanted from them. Unfortunately for them, none of the remaining five are emotionally compromised enough to cause any, anyway. Dongmin finds Minhyuk in the common area, skipping through songs on one of the many CD’s they’ve been left with.

“Hey, Minhyuk.”

“Sup?”

“What are you doing?”

“My best.” Minhyuk pauses, waiting for some response to that.

“I meant specifically.”

“Brave of you to assume I know what I’m doing.” Minhyuk shrugs. “Music’s better than books.”

“Can I ask you something, Minhyuk?”

“Sure?”

“Why…” Dongmin sighs. He knows the answer, so what’s the point in asking, again? “Why did you sign up for the game?”

“Maybe I wanted an excuse to kill someone.”

“I doubt that.” He would have already, if that were the case. And beside, Minhyuk may have killed Bin- in the originally story, intentionally- but it wasn’t because he was planning too. Dongmin knows at least that much about his own characters. (Could he still call them that?)

“You ever realize how screwed up this game actually is?”

“Yeah.” Even more screwed up was that Dongmin had made it, he thinks. Minhyuk thinks it’s messed up it exists, but he doesn’t have to live with being the one who made it that way.

“Well I thought it was, before, but I couldn’t…” Minhyuk sighs, hitting the skip button on the CD player, again. “I couldn’t feel anything about it. Even knowing it was messed up, and that they were real people… I didn’t feel anything. Maybe less when I realized that, then when I was too young to realize it was real.”

Minhyuk has the opposite problem Dongmin has. Dongmin was fine, back when he thought it was fake. It didn’t make him feel anything, other than the stress or regret of an author failing to write his story. Now that they were real, Dongmin felt horrible. Minhyuk, on the other hand, had felt far more emotion towards the game when he thought it wasn’t real. Once he realized that it was- realized how messed up it was- it was like everything fell apart. He couldn’t feel _anything_ , and that terrified him enough he signed up for the game.

Because if he was in that situation, he would _have_ to be able to empathize with other participants, right?

Minhyuk doesn’t explain this, though. Instead he shakes his head and says, “so I didn’t think it’d be that big of a deal, until I got here and realized how stressful it is.”

Dongmin forces himself not to say what he wants. To call Minhyuk out on lying about it. That would be hypocritical, anyway. “Now that you know, don’t you want to leave?”

“Yeah.”

“I could help-”

“Why should I believe that?” Minhyuk levels Dongmin with a glare. Unprepared for that response, Dongmin flinches.

“What?”

“Why would I believe you? Because you helped Sanha? That doesn’t mean anything.”

Dongmin doesn’t know how to respond. Minhyuk turns to the CD player, ejecting the current one and replacing it. There’s a pause, silence broken only when the first song starts playing. Why would Minhyuk trust him? What could he say, that would make Minhyuk believe him?

“Because I’m still here.”

“What?” Minhyuk snaps his attention back to Dongmin, surprise evident on his features.

“If I wanted to I could have left. I know how to escape, now, and am more prepared than I was with Sanha. It would be easier, on my own. But I’m still here, aren’t I? Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because I want all of us to escape here.” Dongmin turns away, stares at the floor. Despite himself, he has long since stopped wanting to escape, himself. “I’m here to try and get everyone out of here.”

That had to be why he was here, right? What caused him to be here. Even if it wasn’t, that was his goal _now_.

Minhyuk doesn’t respond. He stands, and leaves. Dongmin remains there, sitting on the ground by the CD player. Would he actually be able to make Minhyuk trust him, like this?

“Eunwoo, you okay there?” Myungjun’s voice breaks Dongmin out of his thoughts, a few minutes later.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Did you need something?”

“No you just kinda freaked me out, staring straight ahead like that.”

“Sorry.”

 

The second Wednesday- though the third Dongmin’s lived through since arriving- comes and goes without him getting any chance to talk to Minhyuk. He tries, but Minhyuk leaves whenever Dongmin enters a room, and spends most of the day in his own room, anyway. Bin spares Dongmin a sympathetic glance, when Minhyuk storms out of the common area as Dongmin arrives, but there’s nothing either of them can do about. Still, it’s worrying.

If Dongmin can’t get Minhyuk to escape, then should he tell Bin the truth? Get the other to leave since Minhyuk wont? But, then, Bin would definitely realize what was happening. Why one of them needed to leave.

Dongmin shakes his head, breathes a sigh, and returns to his room. Had he made the wrong choice, again?

 

Thursday comes with another note of their rankings, as well as the announcement of the coming Saturday being Myungjun’s day. The other doesn’t seem particularly pleased by this, which is understandable. Myungjun doesn’t have a plan, yet. Isn’t mentally prepared to escape. So having his turn means nothing.

Their popularity rankings have changed, too. Bin has been knocked down to third, under Jinwoo now. Dongmin isn’t sure what caused this, other than maybe Jinwoo just _gaining_  popularity, since Bin hadn’t committed murder this time around. Dongmin remains in first, though he can only assume this is due to almost dying to help Sanha escape. Though he has to wonder: if that’s the case, why wasn't Bin still higher, for saving him.

Then again, he hadn’t paid much attention to what Jinwoo or Myungjun were doing, the past two weeks, so maybe he’d missed Jinwoo being really nice, or cool, or something.

Minhyuk takes one look at the rankings, and turns to leave just as Myungjun admits that he doesn’t have a plan, and will be staying.

“I’ll make sure my day passes without incident!” Myungjun’s words make Dongmin’s head ache. Dongmin hopes he’s right, this time.

 

Dongmin doesn’t see Minhyuk again until they’re all called into the meeting room, this time for a more proper game. It’s explained to them as if it’s an original creation, but listening to the rules of it reveals it’s basically werewolves or mafia. Which, honestly, might be the worst game to have a bunch of people in a death game play.

Myungjun is the traitor- aka the mafia, aka the werewolf- and Jinwoo is his first and only victim. Minhyuk _immediately_  realizes Myungjun is the traitor, and calls him out on it. Myungjun, apparently a very poor liar, loses within the first round. Only to have Jinwoo, offended, question why he was the first Myungjun sacrificed.

Minhyuk leaves after that, before Dongmin can talk to him. Again.

“He really doesn’t want to talk to you, huh?” Bin whispers, frowning.

“I don’t even know why.”

 

That night, Jinwoo once again gathers everyone together. With Sanha absent, it’s a bit quieter, but the group still have dinner together with generally nice conversation. Bin sits as far from Dongmin as possible, around the table, likely due to Dongmin’s previous request to act like they weren’t friends. Part of him regrets that, now, because clearly it hadn’t mattered. Minhyuk wouldn’t even talk to Dongmin, now. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong, but it was _something_. Maybe he could convince Bin not to leave his room, until after Saturday was over. Would that save him?

Dongmin is honestly surprised Minhyuk even shows up, since Dongmin is there. More surprised, still, when Minhyuk sits next to him as if he hasn’t been avoiding Dongmin for a day and a half.

“So after last week, have we all learned that I was right?” Jinwoo asks, drawing Dongmin out of his thoughts.

“Right about what?” Bin asks.

“All of us theoretically being able to escape!” Jinwoo huffs. “Nobody died last time; if we keep this up maybe none of us will.”

“Right,” Minhyuk says, voice dripping sarcasm.

“Kid, I’m serious.”

“Kid?”

“Yeah, kid,” It’s Myungjun, this time.

“I hate both of you.”

“Aw, that’s mean.”

“Jinwoo is right, though,” Dongmin says.

“About Minhyuk being a kid?” Bin asks, frowning.

“About- no, _what_? About us all escaping.” Dongmin shakes his head. “If anyone was a kid it was Sanha.”

“That’s fair.”

“And what if not everyone _tries_  to escape?” Minhyuk eyes Dongmin oddly. Was he talking about himself, or Dongmin?

“Then I will personally carry them out of here? I don’t know, Minhyuk, I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

“You? With your injuries?”

“What’s your _problem_ , Minhyuk?” Dongmin doesn’t mean to sound so angry, but he didn’t know what to do. It was frustrating, to have Minhyuk avoid him, and act like this, when he was trying to help. Trying to keep the other from doing something he was going to regret. Jinwoo tries to say something- to stop them from fighting- but Minhyuk slams his hands on the table between them.

“What’s _yours_?!”

“Me?!”

“Do you think you’re some kind of-”

“Guys-” Jinwoo can barely get the word out, as Minhyuk continues.

“-Saint or something?! Will helping us escape make you feel better about yourself, or something?!”

“Minhyuk!” It’s Bin, this time. “What the _hell_?”

Minhyuk stands, suddenly, and storms from the room. Myungjun looks between him and Dongmin, startled and clearly confused.

“What was that about?”

“Eunwoo?” Jinwoo’s voice draws Dongmin out of his shock, and he jumps to his feet. Ignoring the other three, Dongmin goes after Minhyuk. He didn’t understand. Why was Minhyuk so angry? What had Dongmin done, to make him so upset?

 _Will helping us escape make you feel better about yourself, or something?_  The words ring around his head painfully. Was that it? Was that why he wanted to save them? Because he’d ruined their lives, one after another, and he was guilty? Was Minhyuk right? And if he was, did that change anything? Should he let them die, just because wanting to save them was selfish?

“Minhyuk!” Dongmin calls after the other, while at an almost-run to catch up. Minhyuk stops, without warning, and spins around. “Why- what’s wrong?”

“Excuse me?”

“What did I do to make you- to make you so angry with me? I want to help, honestly. If it’s because I’m selfish, does that change anything?”

“Help how? Like you did with Sanha?”

“Yes? If I help you- or the others- escape-”

“No.”

“What?”

“That’s not what I’m _talking_ _about_.”

“I… don’t understand.”

“You almost died, you realize that? Do you think Sanha was happy, when he realized you almost died, because of him? Do you think I want your help, if that’s going to be the result?”

Dongmin hadn’t considered that. Concern for his own safety wasn’t on his mind, so he never considered it was anyone else's. Let alone Minhyuk’s, when the other barely knew him. When Minhyuk, prior to the game, had so much trouble thinking of the participants of the game as real, living, people he should feel anything about. But, Dongmin had written that to change once Minhyuk was in the game. Had made him friends with Sanha, and made him angry with Bin, because of that.

Why hadn’t it ever occurred to Dongmin?

“I’m not going to die.”

“Saying that doesn’t mean you wont.”

“I’m-” Dongmin breathes a heavy sigh- “Minhyuk, I know what I’m doing better, now. Know how to escape, better, now. If you let me help you, I promise I’ll watch out for myself, too, this time.”

“Maybe I don’t want to take that chance.” With that, Minhyuk spins on his heel, walking away again. Dongmin doesn’t follow, this time. Wouldn’t know what to say, if he did.

 _He’d messed up, hadn’t he?_ That was all he could think about, when he returned to his own room.

 

When Dongmin wakes, on Friday, he’s pretty sure he’s messed up. Is fairly certain he has to somehow convince Bin, within the day, to listen to him and leave. If he can’t do that, maybe he’ll have to redo this week, too. It’s with all of this in mind, he slowly makes his way downstairs and into the common area. Apparently creating a character didn’t mean he had any idea what they would do, when he didn’t decide their actions.

Dongmin breathes a sigh, as he enters the common area. Nobody else is there, so he makes his way to the kitchen without further thought. Nobody is going to be preparing today, like they were last week. Trust each other more, now that nobody had died, and wont be locked in their room for the entire following Saturday. Myungjun’s day is meant to be peaceful, after all.

“Eunwoo?” Dongmin doesn’t immediately process who’s addressed him, as he stares at one of the kitchen cabinets. Then the realization that it was Minhyuk sets in, and he spins around so quickly he smacks his hand against a counter-top.

“Ow- shit- yes?”

“Okay, well, that doesn’t make the whole, _“I’ll take care of myself and not die,_ ” argument very convincing.”

“i wasn’t prepared for this.” Dongmin frowns, holding one of his hands with the other.“What- what’s up?”

Minhyuk pauses, avoids looking at Dongmin for a moment, then sighs. “Tell me how to- help me escape.”

“Huh?”

“Will you help me escape?” Minhyuk looks up, meets Dongmin’s eyes, and Dongmin nods without questioning why Minhyuk changed his mind.

“Okay.” A pause. Then he does question it. “What made you change your mind?”

“ _I promise I’ll watch out for myself, too, this time,_ ” Minhyuk quotes him. “You said that, right? If you mean that, then I… I want to leave.”

“Okay. Let me tell you what the security is like outside.”

 

Dongmin spends the better part of three hours explaining the exact way they need to go, at what time, in order to escape. What to watch out for. What to do if something happens they aren’t prepared for. They eat something, at some point, and the conversation only ends when Myungjun enters the common room and looks between the two oddly.

“Are you two done fighting?”

“Yeah.” Minhyuk nods. “Sorry about yesterday.”

“As long as everything’s okay, now!”

 

A little past 4 in the afternoon, Minhyuk and Dongmin make their way to the fence outside. Minhyuk pauses, turning to Dongmin.

“Ready, Minhyuk?”

“Yeah, but…”

“But?”

“You said you wanted to help _everyone_  get out of here, eventually, right?”

“Right?”

“Then stay here.”

“What?” Dongmin blinks once, twice, before shaking his head. “I said I’d help you escape-”

“I already have all the information I need to escape on my own. You said you’d watch out for yourself, right? Well if you’re not planning to leave, you might as well stay here while I go.”

“But-” but he could end up like Sanha did, originally. Dead while Dongmin had no idea. While he thought he’d saved him.

“But?”

But Dongmin can’t explain that. Doesn’t have any real argument, because Minhyuk is right. It doesn’t make sense for Dongmin to go with him.

“Okay. Just make it out, okay?”

“Yeah, of course. I wouldn’t be going if I didn’t plan on it.”

Minhyuk climbs over the fence, just as 4:08 comes around, and takes off right on schedule. Dongmin heads back inside, once Minhyuk has left his field of view.

Was this okay? Did he do it?

Dongmin finds himself stumbling towards Bin’s room, when the worry starts to get to him. He’d definitely saved Bin, now. He could say that with confidence, at least. He just wasn’t sure if he’d helped Minhyuk any. Bin answers quickly, when Dongmin knocks on his door.

“Dongmin?”

“Minhyuk left. I told him everything I knew about escaping, but…”

“Wanna talk books?”

“Yeah.” It’s better than thinking about a situation he no longer has control over.

 

They don’t get any announcements, throughout Friday. Dongmin had expected to hear _something_ , but apparently the game runners would rather only tell them what’s going on at the end of the week. Saturday passes with Dongmin feeling more anxious every hour. Had Minhyuk made it out? It was too late for him to change his mind and help. Bin spends a portion of the day trying to distract him, to little avail. Eventually Bin goes to Myungjun and Jinwoo, and between the three of them Dongmin is distracted enough that he almost doesn’t worry about Minhyuk.

Almost.

Then as Saturday comes to a close, everyone waits in silence. Myungjun wrings his hands, likely realizing that he doesn’t actually know what the results of his supposedly peaceful day were. Bin tries to appear calm, but that doesn’t work. Dongmin can tell the other is just as worried as Dongmin is. Jinwoo seems the calmest of them, at least.

“Our second week comes to an end,” the announcement starts, finally. “Amazingly, another week without a murder. Are we going for a new record? Even more surprising, there weren’t any deaths. Looks like Minhyuk escaped Friday, leaving you all behind.”

Relief floods Dongmin, and he nearly collapses on top of Myungjun, next to him.

“Everyone survived again,” Jinwoo says, quietly.

Dongmin did it. Despite all his concern, he did it. Minhyuk escaped, Bin survived, and they were one step closer to a deathless game.

 

When Dongmin wakes again, in his room, in the real world, he isn’t as surprised this time. Pages have changed, again. He looks over them, wasting no time. If something bad happened, again, he knew he’d had more work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, no vote this time because the chapter was too long for me to include a description of the next events.  
> Congrats, guys, you were right! 
> 
> Even though I would have allowed a reset, again, if you'd gotten it wrong, there /are/ consequences to getting it wrong first.  
> Getting the first vote between Sanha and Bin wrong didn't ruin anything, because I didn't give enough info at the time for that to be fair, but this choice and future ones have more effects.
> 
> anyway: ASTRO FINALLY GOT THEIR FIRST WIN IM SO PROUD


	7. A Different Story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's that time again, the "whos going to die next" hour.

The new pages Dongmin finds are nearly unrecognizable. There’s not a single scene in common between the volume of pages in front of him, and the unfinished chapter that was originally in its place. He’s caught up, now, to the point he’d written. The end of this volume- the end of the week- was the last thing he’d drawn. The story he had thus far been unable to finish because he couldn’t seem to relay the story he wanted in a way that felt right.

 

_As Dongmin wrote it, things went like this:_

_Sanha and Bin were dead. Minhyuk, recently made a murder, spends the better part of the week doing **nothing** of note. Myungjun and Jinwoo, unable to fix anything, and not knowing what to do, spend all of their time together pretending things didn’t fall apart two weeks prior. When the end of the week comes, and Minhyuk’s day with it, Minhyuk tries to escape and fails. Myungjun and Jinwoo don’t know he’s died, at first, but they know Minhyuk left. They sit outside of the meeting room, side by side, and talk. Pretend they don’t know what the result likely is. Minhyuk wasn’t prepared, likely didn’t care if he made it out, because he was too caught up in the fact he **killed someone.**_

_Myungjun explains his reason for joining the game to Jinwoo, then. That he wanted the money in order to kick-start a business. A cafe. He didn’t have the heart to kill anyone, and planned to escape, eventually. He just hadn’t been prepared enough, when his week came. He talks about his parents, and how they hadn’t wanted him to do it. But they couldn’t help him, and he promised he’d be safe. That he’d come back a victor through escape._

_Then, Jinwoo had turned to Myungjun and quietly admitted his own reason. His friend- a character Dongmin hadn’t named, properly- was sick. Needed expensive treatment, and soon, or he would die. While most people in Dongmin’s story had names, even the ones exclusively in back-stories, they usually didn’t come up. However, Jinwoo’s character didn’t make his dialogue natural without mentioning the name, so Dongmin had given him a placeholder name until he thought of a better one. (His own, since he had been too lazy to think of anything else). This was where Dongmin’s finished pages had stopped._

_The plan was that, after that, to have Jinwoo kill Myungjun. Apologize as he did, because he didn’t have **time** to wait for Myungjun to escape. And Myungjun wouldn’t be able to fight back, because he was panicked and didn’t want to hurt anyone._

Dongmin just couldn’t make that happen naturally. In a way fitting to Jinwoo’s character. So the pages- the chapter, the volume- had gone unfinished.

 

Things have changed significantly, from this version of the story. Firstly: Sanha and Bin are both alive. Sanha and Minhyuk are gone, escaped. And Bin is still around, knowing more than he should. (Though that doesn’t show up on the pages.)

Myungjun still dies, however.

 

_The new story, with the changes Dongmin has caused, goes like this:_

_The week passes in relative peace. When the days come up, instead of Minhyuk, who’s gone, it’s Bin’s turn to use his points. He says he’s going to escape, immediately, and does just that when the week comes to an end. He makes it out fine, too, since he has enough information and preparation to do so without trouble._

_Myungjun, on the other hand, is not so lucky. Myungjun, realizing that if he and Bin escape, Jinwoo will also win, decides to escape too. However, he doesn’t **tell** anyone this, and doesn’t make it down the hill. Not because of the security, but because of **Jinwoo**. Who **poisons him**._

_During the meal they all have together, as if a tradition though it’s been only a few weeks, Jinwoo poisons Myungjun. Waits until Saturday to get everyone together, instead of Thursday, and poisons Myungjun at that breakfast just before Bin leaves._

The new events bother Dongmin. It’s not so confusing that Jinwoo could get a hold of poison, even if it wasn’t his day. They had bleach lying around- in the laundry room Dongmin doesn’t think he’s ever actually put any of them in- and the houseplants around the building sprout poisonous berries. There’s other things, in storage rooms, that could similarly be used. It was a game made for people to die, after all. People usually would rather use their days, and their points, to kill, but that didn’t mean that was the _only_ way.

What’s surprising is that he does it so subtly. Doesn’t mention his backstory- not even in his thoughts- except to note he doesn’t have any more time. And Myungjun doesn’t realize anything is wrong until he tries to escape.

The fact Myungjun never mentions he’s going to leave seems strange to Dongmin, too. The whole thing didn’t feel as well planned out as his story did. As he would have written it.

In fact, who was making the new pages? Were they changing on their own? Why? If they were able to do that, then why was he needed to change things? Did him being in the game make that happen?

And wouldn’t him being there change things, from how they are on the page. Jinwoo killing Myungjun wouldn’t end the game, with Dongmin there. Unless he ended up trying to kill Dongmin too, when he’s there.

Everything is just _off _,__  Dongmin thinks.

Whatever the case is, he needs a plan. Needs a way to stop Myungjun from dying. To stop Jinwoo from killing him.

 

As he sees it, he once again has two options. Because he’s earned Bin’s trust, Dongmin thinks no matter what he does, he can tell Bin that Myungjun is going to escape, and that they should help him. The choice, beyond that, lied with Dongmin’s actions.

 **Option one:** together with Bin, actively defend Myungjun. Prevent him from attending that meal, maybe. Or at least keep him from taking any drinks from Jinwoo. Prevent the two from being alone together, too, just in case Jinwoo changed tactics when poison failed. The flaw in this was that Jinwoo might just kill them, too, if they try this. That, and if Myungjun notices that they wont leave him by himself, he might think _they_  are trying to kill him, instead of save him.

 **Option two:** directly stop Jinwoo. Spend as much time with Jinwoo as possible, so he can’t be sneaky. While Bin helps Myungjun, Dongmin gets Jinwoo to trust him just enough not to be suspicious when Dongmin spends time with him. Keep him distracted, and if he tries to poison Myungjun, still, beat him to giving Myungjun the water that is the original cause. Then just keep an eye on Jinwoo until Myungjun leaves, thus assuring Bin and Myungjun escape without incident. This risks Jinwoo deciding Dongmin is in the way, but he wont be able to do anything about that until Saturday, anyway.

 

Dongmin honestly isn’t sure what the better option is. Which plan to use. Stopping the killer had been the wrong choice, with Sanha, but clearly stopping the killer was the right choice with Minhyuk. At the very least it had _worked_. So he can’t use past experience as a basis. Sure, he could explain things to Bin, and hope the other watched out for Myungjun well enough, but was that enough? Then again, would putting all of their focus on Myungjun make them unaware if Jinwoo changed his plan? If he did, and they were too focused on Myungjun, then that would be just as bad.

Dongmin breathes a sigh, his head starting to hurt again. He pulls had his hair, lightly, while he considers what to do.

 _No_ , he shakes his head, he knows. If he’s wrong, he’ll just have to do this again, right? That’s how it was with Sanha. Sure that had changed something, with Bin remembering, but he’d still been able to fix things. It might have even helped, though he’s not so sure.

So he’s made his choice. He knows which path to take.

“If whatever’s causing this is listening, you can send me back,” Dongmn says. Nothing happens, though, even when he waits a number of minutes. Well, at least that meant he probably wasn’t somehow being watched, in the real world. So he reaches for a pen- if it didn’t send him back then he would _write_  the new ending- only for that same sharp pain to spread through his head. His vision blurs, and he accepts that he’s going back, again.

 

Dongmin wakes on the floor of Bin’s room. Myungjun is passed out, too, next to him. Bin sits against his bed, also on the floor, reading. He looks up, when Dongmin sits up.

“Good morning.”

“I miss anything?”

“Not really. I woke up a little before Jinwoo, and he just left to get food.” Bin shrugs. “I think we all passed out shortly after realizing Minhyuk had made it out safely.”

“Okay.” Dongmin nods. “Hey, Bin…”

“Yeah?”

“It-” He lowers his voice, distinctly aware of Myungjun asleep next to him- “happened again.”

“Really? We can’t catch a break, huh? Well… you more than me, I guess.” Bin glances at Myungjun. “Explain it to me later?”

“Yeah.” Dongmin nods. “I think I have a plan, too, so I’ll let you know when it’s just us.”

“Okay.”

He already decided, weeks ago, he wanted to save everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should Eunwoo **Focus On MJ** or **Focus On JinJin**
> 
> We're here, folks. The point in which Dongmin has changed so much it's not even really his story, anymore. Just one more person to save, that he originally wrote to die.  
> I believe in you guys! All the hints to the right choice are there. Actually you might be able to figure out more than just this choice, by now >.>  
> I wouldn't be able to, though, so if you do you're smarter than me.


	8. And Then There Was- Who?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH BOY WE IN FOR A LONG ONE  
> before editing (and according to my word processor that is known to always somehow be different than ao3) this chapter is over 6000 words ha............................oh boy
> 
> I could have separated this like I did the past couple of times, but............i just really wanted to leave this all together. Sorry.

Divide and conquer. Dongmin decides the best method is for him and Bin to each focus on one of the two. Bin, since he’s going to escape, obviously will focus on Myungjun, and Dongmin will focus on Jinwoo. Between the two of them, he has- has to have- faith that they’ll keep Myungjun alive. Whatever happens once Myungjun and Bin escape, he can deal with.

Things are going to be relatively peaceful, until the end of the week, so all Dongmin has to do is try and get closer to Jinwoo. To keep the other close enough to watch him, and make sure he can’t kill Myungjun. It’s simple, should be easy, but Dongmin knows better than to just expect the best outcome. He thought other things would be easy, only for them to cause him near-endless stress.

First things first, though, informing Bin of the plan. The other seems to have accepted that Dongmin knows more, still, than Bin, and that he’s got their best interests in mind. So Dongmin isn’t worried about that part. They meet up, in the afternoon, right after that days game in the meeting room.

“So, it happened again?” Bin asks, as they stand in Dongmin’s room.

“Yeah.”

“Weird that it’s only you who remembers.” Bin frowns. “Or was there a reason I remembered what happened with Sanha more?”

“I- uh- don’t know.” Dongmin does know, though. Bin can’t remember this time- or last time- because it hadn’t _actually_  happened yet.

“Okay…” Bin trails off, shaking his head. “So?”

“Myungjun is going to escape with-” Dongmin stops, realizing Bin doesn’t know he’s going to escape yet.

“With?”

“You.”

“I’m going to escape? But I wouldn’t until- oh, it’s my turn?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you… going to be okay here without me, when it’s just you and Jinwoo?”

“When it’s just us, I can escape and he can win.” Dongmin shouldn’t be here in the first place. Could him being here stop Jinwoo from wining, when the actual story pretended he didn’t exist, anyway?

“If you say so.” Bin’s frown deepens, despite his words. “But, Myungjun?”

“He… he died before he could escape. With your help, I think he could have escaped if it wasn’t for…”

“For?”

“Jinwoo poisoned him.”

“Jinwoo?!”

“Bin!” Dongmin reaches forward to cover the other’s mouth. Their rooms aren’t exactly soundproof. Though the occupants on either side of Dongmin are gone, now, if someone was in the hallway they definitely would hear shouting.

A small, “sorry,” comes out muffled by Dongmin’s hand. When Dongmin stops covering Bin’s mouth, he speaks again. “Why would he do that?”

“He must have had a reason.” Dongmin couldn’t tell Bin why, as that was knowledge he would have needed to be close to Jinwoo to know. And, if he already had gotten close to Jinwoo, then his plan wouldn’t add up. So, Dongmin can’t explain. “But I think I know how to stop him.”

“Okay…” Bin sighs. “But Jinwoo? He was so- he was the first one to say we could all make it out of here alive…”

“I know, which is why I’m sure we can stop him.” Dongmin places his hands on Bin’s shoulders, looking him in the eyes. “So let’s save Myungjun, together.”

“Okay, tell me the plan.”

“You just need to make sure Myungjun escapes. I can tell you everything I know about how to escape, before then, but you can’t really talk to him about it until it’s revealed that it’s your turn. Otherwise that would seem suspicious.”

“Got it. I can do that, count on me. What about you, then?”

“I’m going to focus on Jinwoo. If I can distract him, or at least keep a close enough eye on him, then he wont have the chance to poison anyone.”

“What if he changes his plan?”

“It cant happen until the last day, he wont have time once he’s failed to poison Myungjun. I can stop him, at least long enough for you two to leave, and then I can deal with what happens after.”

“But… what if he decides to kill you?”

“Bin-” Dongmin takes a step back, breathes a sigh, and shakes his head- “listen.”

“Okay?”

“I… I’ll be fine, okay? I have a plan, once you two leave. If worrying about me, we’ll just lose time we could be using to save Myungjun, and Jinwoo, too.”

“Minhyuk was right to yell at you. You really don’t care enough about your own safety.”

“I’ll be careful, Bin.”

“Fine.” Finally, Bin nods, and turns to leave. “You better, or I’ll find some way to go back, this time, and save you myself.”

“I’m sure.” Dongmin doesn’t know if that would be possible- is pretty sure he only went back because he’s the author- but understands Bin’s warning. He isn’t planning on dying, anyway. Bin doesn’t need to worry.

 

When Monday morning rolls around, Dongmin is distinctly aware of how much time he has. There’s always the chance Jinwoo’s plan has already started, and he wont be able to stop the other from _getting_  the poison, but he still has to try his best to watch the other. He has four days, before the Saturday that decides it all. The last Saturday that was supposed to exist, in the story he wrote.

Now that Bin has his own goal, Dongmin can start trying to get closer to Jinwoo. They don’t have a game, for the day, so he has to seek Jinwoo out himself.

Dongmin finds Jinwoo in the kitchen, just after 8:30, which is strangely unsettling. He knows Jinwoo can’t do anything, yet- and even if he could, it would be water, not food, to watch out for- but knowing Jinwoo takes advantage of a meal to kill someone makes his presence in the kitchen strange. Dongmin shakes the thought aside. Thinking too much about it would be just as bad as ignoring it. If he gets too caught up in what’s going to happen, he’ll act strangely enough that Jinwoo will notice.

“Good morning, Jinwoo,” Dongmin says, as he finally makes his way to the kitchen. Jinwoo gives a small response, before Dongmin speaks again. “I guess you were right.”

“I was right about what?” Jinwoo looks up, frowning.

“Everyone- uh- that we could all escape? It’s starting to look more realistic, now.”

“Oh, right.” Jinwoo nods, giving Dongmin a small smile. “Thanks to you, more than anyone.”

“Uh- oh- I don’t know if I’d say that.”

“You don’t? I mean-” Jinwoo laughs- “if you weren’t here, would Sanha and Minhyuk have actually escaped okay? Seems like you helped them a lot, right?”

“I guess so.” Dongmin tries to control his reaction. Jinwoo was more right than he could know. Dongmin shrugs, attempting not to seem off-put by the words. _Jinwoo doesn’t know_ , Dongmin reminds himself, _he isn’t trying to call Dongmin out on his effect on the game_.

“Anyway, I was thinking about actually cooking, today. None of us have anything that wasn’t instant in _weeks,_  despite having this whole fridge of food.”

“Oh.” _Don’t react, don’t react_. Dongmin nods. “Want help?”

“Sure.” Jinwoo nods. He points towards the kitchen knives, as he moves to the stove. “You can cut some vegetables for me, yeah?”

“Yeah, sure.”

This is worse, Dongmin decides, than when he was befriending Bin. Worse than Bin commenting on how people probably liked Sanha, and wanted him to survive. Unlike the feeling Dongmin had then, as if he was personally being called out for having made Bin kill the other, this is more unsettling. Because Jinwoo is so _normal_ , as if he isn’t _planning_   _a murder_. Bin killing Sanha would always have been an accident, but Jinwoo was _planning to kill someone,_  and acting normal. Like everything was the same.

This was the same person who first brought up them all possibly escaping.

Still, Dongmin has enough experience over a few weeks, to keep calm. To act like he didn’t know. Cooks breakfast with Jinwoo. Greets Myungjun and Bin with him, when they arrive in the common area. Helps Jinwoo serve breakfast to the group while ignoring the sinking feeling that in just four days this same situation will be used to kill.

 

When it’s back down to just Jinwoo and Dongmin- Myungjun and Bin leaving with discussions of book plots being passed between them- Dongmin turns to the other.

“Hey, Jinwoo?”

“Yeah?”

“Why did you sign up for this game?” He’d asked the others, despite knowing. Felt the need to ask Jinwoo, too. (He realizes, after a second, he never actually asked Sanha.)

“You don’t know?”

“Huh?” Dongmin blinks once, twice, thinking he misheard.

“Oh, right, I guess I only ever mentioned it to Minhyuk.” Jinwoo shrugs. “I have a friend who’s sick.”

“Oh.” Dongmin shakes his head. Jinwoo told Minhyuk? When? It must have been off screen- page? Outside of what Dongmin saw. He forgot everyone still lived lives, outside of the plot they were written into. “Need prize money?”

“Yeah. His treatment is expensive, and Dongmin was a college student, so he doesn’t exactly have money lying around.”

Dongmin tries not to react to his own name, nearly forgetting he hadn’t changed the friend's name. Still, he must have reacted in someway, because Jinwoo frowns at him.

“You okay, Eunwoo?”

“Yeah, I- uh- also have a friend named Dongmin, so I was a little caught off guard, is all.”

“A friend?”

“Yeah he’s-” _me_ , Dongmin doesn’t say- “a little younger than me. Sanha’s age.”

He might as well keep his fake backstory consistent. Jinwoo nods, turning away to pick up his cup of water. “If we all get out of here, maybe we can introduce the two, huh?”

“Uh… yeah.”

“What about you?”

“What?”

“Why did you sign up for it?” Jinwoo turns back to Dongmin, while taking a sip of water. Dongmin hesitates. Had he ever given a reason? Had he ever  _thought_  of an excuse? In a moment, Dongmin can’t think of a reason he’s said, if there was any, and panics to come up with one. Why would he have joined it?

Why did he join it? “I- uh- wanted to see if I could get everyone to survive. Like- uh- my life was pretty normal, and suddenly I thought, what if I do something nobody else has? And- uh- the game came to mind. Someone always dies, but it wouldn’t hurt to try, right?”

“That’s… kind of shallow, you know?”

“It’s selfish,” Dongmin says. Dongmin can’t deny that he’s selfish, wanting to save them all when he put them in this situation to start with. “But, uh, at least I know it?”

“Right…”

“I’m sorry, about your friend.”

“Thanks.” Jinwoo sighs. “Do me a favour and escape, quickly, so I can help him, huh?” Jinwoo tries to sound like he’s joking, but it comes out too obviously _not_  a joke. Dongmin can only nod.

“Yeah, was planning on it.”

 

Dongmin and Jinwoo spend the rest of Monday together, for the most part. At the end of the day, they return to their rooms, and Dongmin can’t come up with any excuse to further stay at his side. Finally out of Jinwoo’s presence, in his own room, Dongmin breaths a heavy sigh, and realizes how tense he is. How stressed. It was easier, with Bin and Minhyuk, because they hadn’t calculated their murders so much. Sanha was easy because he never hurt anyone. How much of the time they were talking, was Jinwoo actually focused on Dongmin, and how much was he planning to kill Myungjun?

Or _was_ he even planning it, yet? Maybe he hadn’t decided to kill, yet. Maybe Dongmin was just so caught up in what was going to happen, he hadn’t stopped to consider what kind of person Jinwoo actually was. In the original story Jinwoo had only resorted to killing because the time that had passed finally got to him, and all the death around him didn’t help. It was likely the former was true this time, too. That Dongmin was thinking of Jinwoo as worse than he actually was.

Dongmin closes his eyes, and tells himself to stop thinking about it. Three more days.

 

Apparently the game runners think Jenga is a good game to make the participants play. Tuesday, when they’re called to the meeting room, there’s a _giant_  set of Jenga blocks set up. Sometimes Dongmin wonders when the game runners actually do this stuff, since they nearly never see the staff. Maybe that was something he should have explained when he was writing the story, so he would know, now. Either way, they're told- via intercom- that they can pair up and play in teams. Obviously Bin grabs onto Myungjun immediately, determined to keep the other close. So Dongmin is paired with Jinwoo.

It goes about as well as expected. That is to say: not very. Bin’s first action is to take a piece out of one side, and put it back on the same side, on top, immediately challenging the balance of the tower. From there, things only get worse, until Jinwoo finds himself being knocked over by the falling tower. Dongmin flinches, when the blocks fall on top of Jinwoo, while Bin and Myungjun cheer for their victory.

“I hate all of you,” Jinwoo mutters, while Dongmin offers him a hand up. Myungjun continues to laugh, while Bin coves a grimace. Dongmin is proud of himself for not flinching at the words.

“I didn’t do anything.” Dongmin frowns. In turn, Jinwoo nods.

“Okay, just those two.”

“Hey!” Myungjun huffs. “Bin was the one who set the tower off balance first!”

“That’s literally how you win the game!”

“Okay, just Bin, then.” Jinwoo nods, while Bin gasps.

“Mean.”

 

Jinwoo returns to the common area, and Dongmin waits a while to follow. If he followed Jinwoo everywhere, that would definitely make him suspicious. After around ten minutes, Dongmin returns to the common area only to find Jinwoo nowhere to be seen. Confused, and worried, he goes in search of the other. Eventually he finds Jinwoo outside, sitting nearby the fence.

“Oh, Jinwoo, what are you doing out here?”

“I feel like I haven’t been outside at all the past two weeks.” Jinwoo shrugs, staring up at the sky. “You?”

“Wanted fresh air.” Lying really had gotten easier, Dongmin thinks. Part of him is worried about that, but it’s something he can think about later.

“Well.” Jinwoo motions next to him, for Dongmin to sit. When Dongmiin does, Jinwoo finally looks at him. “Hey, Eunwoo?”

“Yeah?”

“What made you help Sanha?”

The question isn’t one Dongmin expects, but he answers quickly. “He reminded me of my friend.”

“Dongmin?”

“Huh?”

“Your friend?”

“Yeah, right, Dongmin.” Dongmin nods. He really regrets that lie, now, but it was the only way to cover for his original reaction. “Sorry, that time my mind immediately went to you mentioning _your_  friend.”

“It’s okay.” Jinwoo shrugs. “And Minhyuk?”

“Minhyuk? What about him?”

“Why’d you help him?”

Dongmin is used to being the one asking question, so this is really not something he was prepared for. Still, he answers before his pause seems suspicious. “Maybe I’m just too soft for the younger contestants to not help them, you know?”

“Ultimate mom friend,” Jinwoo jokes, and Dongmin laughs at that. “Who’s next, then? Bin?”

“Oh, I guess so.” Dongmin nods. “Assuming he wants to leave.”

“But then you’ll be the youngest, you know.” Jinwoo points at Dongmin, who shrugs in return.

“Then I’ll skip myself, probably. That’d mean… you?”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

There a pause of comfortable silence. Any of Dongmin’s worries about Jinwoo planning what he’s going to do disappear, in the silence. He couldn’t be. Dongmin hadn’t written him to be the type to plan a death for so long, and clearly that was still the case. Jinwoo didn’t know what he was going to do, yet.

“Hey, Jinwoo?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s your friend like?”

“Dongmin?”

“Yeah.”

Jinwoo hums in thought. Then, after a moment, finally responds. “Well other than being a sickly college student, he’s pretty quick to anger. Not that he’s- like- a bad kid, or anything. If anything, you remind me a lot of him. Maybe I should pull a you, and try to save you because you remind me of him.”

Dongmin doesn’t immediately know how to respond to that. It was another question he didn’t know the answer to, when he asked. Something he hadn’t planned to explain in the story, and thus didn’t know. Had not giving Jinwoo’s friend any real characteristics, made him just be like his namesake? “Don’t know if that would work, while I’m trying to help other people.”

“Maybe not.”

 

Wednesday passes without any games, or really important events whatsoever. Dongmin and Jinwoo’s conversations are unimportant, unmemorable, as most conversations usually end up being. At one point, Jinwoo jokes that it’s almost like Dongmin is trying help him to escape, instead of Bin next, since they’re spending so much time together. Which, Dongmin realizes, isn’t such a strange thing for him to think, considering the past two- successful- weeks passed with Dongmin spending nearly all his time with the person who escaped.

It does, however, giving Dongmin a sinking anxiety about whether or not that was indicative of this plan failing. After all, the last time the person he talked to didn’t escape, it was Bin, and it hadn’t saved Sanha.

 

Thursday morning comes with another note, telling them their rankings and that it’s going to be Bin’s day, Saturday. Bin announces, immediately, that he’s going to escape, and Jinwoo nudges Dongmin when he does.

“The next youngest, huh?”

“Guess so.”

Their rankings have changed quite a bit. Dongmin retains his place as the fake-first place. Fake, since in the actual story- on the pages in real world- he doesn’t exist. Myungjun has risen to second place, with Bin and then Jinwoo following. Dongmin has absolutely no idea what’s caused this, other than _maybe_ Myungjun’s positive attitude giving the viewers something to latch onto between the escapes and arguments of the last week. He can’t think of anything at all for Bin and Jinwoo’s rankings switching again, however.

“I’ve gotten so popular!” Myungjun laughs, and turns to one of the many camera’s placed around the common area. He waves, sends a wink, and gives a small, “thank’s guys,” while everyone else pretends he didn’t do that.

“God, you’re embarrassing,” Bin mutters.

“Whatever.” Myungjun seems unperturbed by his statement. “Don’t you have an escape to plan?”

“Yeah…” Bin hesitates.

“Oh, Eunwoo.” Myungjun turns to Dongmin. “Why don’t you tell us all how to escape.”

“All of us?” Jinwoo tilts his head, confusion evident.

“Why not? Save him the trouble of repeating himself anymore. I’m sure he’s covered this already a bunch.”

“Right…” Dongmin nods. Myungjun isn’t wrong, though he has a feeling the real reason for Myungjun asking is so he will also learn how to escape. Why Myungjun doesn’t just _tell them_  he’s going to escape too, Dongmin still doesn’t understand. He has theories, sure. (Maybe Myungjun wanted to surprise Jinwoo with a win, or maybe he isn’t sure of himself yet.) But none of that was something Dongmin could actually confirm.

“Well,” Bin starts, “you have a point. What do you say, Eunwoo?”

“Yeah, no problem. I still have my notes of the security written down, I’ll go get them.”

Dongmin returns to his room, to get said papers, before sitting in the common area with the others, and explaining. It takes a few hours- between the explanation itself, and answering questions from the others- but by the end everyone has a good understanding of how to escape.

“Just because you know all this doesn’t guarantee anything,” Dongmin says, as his explanation ends. “It’s still dangerous, hence what happened with Sanha getting shot, but as long as you’re careful I’m sure you can make it.”

“Thanks, Eunwoo,” Myungjun says, grinning.

“No problem.”

 

Jinwoo doesn’t get everyone together that night. Bin and Dongmin have dinner together- while Jinwoo and Myungjun return to their rooms early- and share worried looks about this. Jinwoo must have already decided, by now. But if they questioned him, Jinwoo would probably have explanations ready. Or get angry at them for expecting him to do something he never actually agreed to do.

“One more day.” Bin’s words make Dongmin’s stomach sink. One more day.

“Yeah.”

“Do you think… it’ll be okay?”

“It has to be.” Dongmin stares down at his food, feeling sick to his stomach. _“It has to be.”_

“Right…”

 

Friday passes without anything important happening, again. Myungjun pulls Bin aside, early in the morning, and the two spend the rest of the day in Bin’s room. While they’re likely discussing their escape, Dongmin tries to hold conversation with Jinwoo. Tries not to think about what’s going to happen.

“I forgot yesterday,” Jinwoo says, late into the day “but it’s a little weird after doing it two weeks in a row. So tomorrow morning, why don’t we all get together and have breakfast, instead of dinner?”

“Yeah, okay.” If Dongmin said no, it wouldn’t help. “Want help with the preparation? We can make a proper meal, again.”

“Yeah, sure.” Jinwoo nods, smiling. “Meet you here in the morning.”

 _He’s so casual._ Dongmin stands. “Yeah. I’m gonna go get some rest.” At this point, Dongmin doesn’t think watching Jinwoo will help. If he was so confident as to let Dongmin help him prepare, he must already have what he needed, and be ready.

 

During Saturday morning, as Jinwoo and Dongmin cook, Dongmin tries really hard to watch Jinwoo. To catch him doing something to the glass of water he’ll hand to Myungjun. However, he doesn’t _see_  anything. Turns away for a moment, only to find glasses already poured, and food almost done. Dongmin audibly curses, catching Jinwoo’s attention, but says he hit his hand on the counter to cover it up. He can’t call Jinwoo out on being a _murderer_  when he doesn’t even know which glass it is.

Myungjun is, very acutely, allergic to one of the spices in the food. It’s not enough to kill him, but it will make him start coughing. His own glass of water, and Jinwoo’s, are poisoned. When Myungjun starts coughing, Jinwoo will offer his own- untouched- water. Whether Myungjun takes it- he will- or goes for his own, Jinwoo’s plan will work. He couldn’t have planned for Myungjun’s allergy- didn’t know about it- but it’s a perfect aid to the plan. Jinwoo only poisoned his own water in case Myungjun spilled his own, or reached for the wrong glass.

Dongmin has a counter to this. He just needs to be quicker than Jinwoo. To hand Myungjun his own glass before Jinwoo can. And then, while Myungjun recovers, he’ll take Myungjun’s cup as his own, and just not drink it.

Jinwoo asks Dongmin to get Bin, while he goes to get Myungjun, and Dongmin agrees because arguing wouldn’t help. While alone with Bin, Dongmin quietly explains what he’s going to do, and Bin promises to distract Jinwoo just enough that Dongmin can beat him to Myungjun.

Their meal goes as expected. When Myungjun starts coughing, Dongmin nearly throws his cup at the other in an attempt to beat Jinwoo to it. Jinwoo jumps, dropping his own cup to the ground and dumping all the water out, when Bin knocks something into this lap. The fake-accident stops Jinwoo’s plan in its tracks, and Myungjun breathes a relieved sigh when the water is gone. Dongmin holds onto Myungjuns original glass, laughing when Jinwoo complains about Bin dumping scrambled eggs into his lap.

“Jeeze, that sucked.” Myungjun clears his throat. “I thought I was dying.”

“You okay?” Jinwoo asks, seemingly unperturbed by his ruined plan.

“Yeah. Man, that would have sucked. Choking to death right before I escaped.”

“What?”

“Oh, right, I decided yesterday. I’m going to escape with Bin today!” Myungjun grins, and Jinwoo only nods.

“Then it’ll be just us, huh Jinwoo?” Dongmin watches the other for any sign of a negative reaction, or guilt, or _anything_. There’s nothing, however. Jinwoo seems completely unconcerned. Unaffected by the news.

“Well you did say I’d be the one you'd help after Bin, right?” Jinwoo’s joke is unsettlingly casual.

“Yep, I guess I did.”

“Sorry about the eggs,” Bin says, before standing. “But speaking of escaping... Myungjun?”

“Yeah, I’m ready.”

 

Bin and Myungjun leave. Bin gives Dongmin one last, worried look before he goes, but Dongmin only smiles and waves the two off.

Then it’s just Jinwoo and Dongmin. Waiting until midnight, when they’ll hear whether or not the other two made it. Nearing midnight, Dongmin considers locking himself in his room, so Jinwoo can’t attack him if he decides to. Except, when Dongmin makes his way back towards his room, he finds Jinwoo standing outside the door.

“Hey, can I talk to you?”

“Oh… yeah?” Dongmin nods, and opens the door when Jinwoo steps aside. Once they’re both in Dongmin’s room, he’s filled with anxiety. What would Jinwoo do, now? Ask Dongmin to leave, so he could win? Or kill him to make sure he did?

“Dongmin...”

“Yeah?” Dongmin turns to face Jinwoo, before realizing that Jinwoo _shouldn’t know his name isn’t Eunwoo_. Was Jinwoo talking without Dongmin noticing? Had he been too caught up in his own thoughts to realize? Maybe that had been a reasonable response to whatever Jinwoo had said. Maybe he wouldn’t notice. Maybe-

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. What- uh- what were you saying about Dongmin?”

Jinwoo pauses, then shakes his head. “No, _Eunwoo_ , I was talking to you.”

“Huh?” Dongmin doesn’t understand. “Wait- uh- what? I don’t understand, what did you want to talk to me about? Your friend? The game?”

“You are my friend.”

“That’s… nice. You’re my friend too?”

“ _Dongmin_ , I know Eunwoo isn’t your name. I’ve known since you said it.”

Dongmin can’t process that. Since he said it? How? Why? If Jinwoo knew Dongmin was lying all this time, why didn’t he say anything? If he knew Dongmin’s name this entire time, why didn’t he call him on it when he said it was his friend’s name? “Why… didn’t you say anything? I don’t understand.”

“Okay, well, any time I tried to bring this up I couldn’t… make myself do it.” Jinwoo sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “Bin killed Sanha, you know? And then Minhyuk killed Bin. And then Minhyuk probably died. And I- and I was going to tell Myungjun about my friend, except suddenly that didn’t make any sense?”

“ _This_ doesn’t make any sense.”

“And then it was the first day and _you_  were there. And then Sanha died, and when I was talking to you it was suddenly the second day again.”

“You… you’ve been- you remembered this whole time?!” Dongmin doesn’t know why, but that bothers him. Makes him _angry_. Because Bin had only hidden it until he realized Dongmin was changing things. But if Jinwoo knew from the _beginning_ why didn’t he say anything? Why didn’t he _help_? Why did he still try to kill Myungjun? Why _did_ he try to kill Myungjun? “Then why did you try to kill Myungjun?!”

“I don’t know!” Jinwoo throws his arms up, looking as angry as Dongmin feels. “Why did you _want me to?!”_

“Wh-what?”

“You made us _kill_  each other!” Jinwoo’s voice echos around the room. “It was your fault! You had to fix things!”

 _“Another week!”_  The announcement starts, telling them day has ended. _“Amazingly two people escaped! Down to two and still no deaths, that’s impressive. Could this be it? The first time everyone survives?”_

 

Dongmin is in his room. He wakes in his room- his real room. The one with pages of his story laying across the ground. It’s only been two minutes, according to his clock, since he first found it like that. His head hurts.

He’d saved Myungjun, he knows that much. But… Jinwoo.

Dongmin makes his way to the pages on instinct. They’ve changed, again. Bin, on the pages, is entirely responsible for stopping Jinwoo’s plan. And when Myungjun says he’s going to escape, Jinwoo looses the reason to try again. When Jinwoo is named the proper winner of the game, it ends. No deaths.

An Epilogue exists. Shows the group of participants getting together after the game. There’s… nothing left.

Dongmin doesn’t have anything else to do for them. He fixed everything. Their problems are gone. And, yet, he doesn’t feel happy.

Jinwoo had known? Why? What did he and Bin have in common? What did they have, nobody else did, that made them remember? And, more importantly, why had Dongmin ended up in their story? Was it because of Jinwoo? He had said Dongmin _had to fix things_. But, then, if it was because of him Jinwoo certainly didn’t seem to have known that at first. He said himself that waking up on the first day had been _sudden_  to him.

When Dongmin first tried and failed to save Sanha, Jinwoo had been the one to ask him if he would have tried again, if he could. In fact, Dongmin isn’t actually sure if the person who called his real name, when that question caused a sharp pain in his head, had been Bin. He thought so, because Bin was the only one he thought knew, at the time, but now he’s not so sure.

Did it matter?

Dongmin doesn’t have anything else to do. He stands, leaves his room, and stumbles towards his window. Looks out at the alleyway his apartment sat next to. _College student, and part-time comic book author, Lee Dongmin._ He would just have to be that, again. Not a game participant. He doesn’t know what to do about the story. The published chapters couldn’t have changed, right? Should he draw the story as originally planned, again? Publish a story he no longer wanted to happen, now that he was friends with so many of it’s characters?

 

If he tried to edit the pages that had changed, again, would he go back? Like the other times, when he woke in his room? What would he get out of that? Answers? Put back in the game, thus erasing Jinwoo’s victory? Everyone was _happy_. That was what he _wanted_ , right? But, he could escape, too. Escape, and then ask Jinwoo for answers.

Dongmin shakes his head, before pressing it against the cool glass. It's still day out, but cloudy. He didn’t know what would happen, if he went back. Doesn’t know how he would get back to the real world, if that worked, once he had the answers he wanted.

“Sorry, Sanha, I think I lied about seeing you once we escaped.”

It wasn’t like he knew that he _could_ even get back. There was always the possibility editing the pages would do nothing. But if it could do something, he shouldn’t risk it. Shouldn’t mess with them, in case it did send him back. Unless he fully decided that was what he wanted to do.

 

Should he try?

Dongmin breathes another sigh- feels like he’s been sighing too much, lately- and makes his way back into his room.

Does he want to?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Should He Try To Go Back?**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> This vote can't be gotten wrong!  
> It's just a choice, no consequences. We're past that ^^ you did it! You saved everyone! I didn't doubt you would, after Escape, aroha's are real good at choices huh.
> 
> Now that we're past choices that have consequences: The consequences would have been a few minor things, like how dongmin would act when he knows exactly what happens if he makes the wrong choice and more people remembering- which would have actually made things worse- and Dongmin getting hurt. Really. Every wrong choice, would have caused Dongmin to get injured- worse and worse- every time. You saw that with the first time, where while saving Sanha, he got hurt, but that choice wasn't explained well enough for those injuries to be more than an inconvenience. However had you gotten any more wrong.....
> 
> Well, anyway. All the answers exist already, actually, but this choice will affect which of two endings we get. No bad ends left, though. This isn't Escape, ha. So, do you want Dongmin to try and go back?
> 
> oh and if jinwoo seem strange near the end pls remember he's been holding all this in since chapter 1  
> if you go back and look at scenes with jinwoo- especially when he's talking- you might notice he's been a little off since chapter 3, but not anything obvious enough when you dont know he knows anything. i think. I tried to hint at jinwoo knowing, without making it obvious he knew.  
> honestly i was worried about writing this part of the story, because I couldn't tell if i set it up well enough, or if i wrote it strangely  
> im rambling im just really worried about the reaction to this one even though y'all are super nice


	9. Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An Ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we here folks, the end  
> you chose to go back into their world so..............................  
> yep

“I want to go back.” Dongmin speaks without realizing it, as that thuoght sets in. He wants to go back to them, to get answers. More than just wanting answers- more than just being upset with Jinwoo- he wants to see them again. The characters that were his _friends_  now. Dongmin doesn’t have a lot of friends in the real world, not really. None that he could immediately pull to mind. If he did, he likely would have had a better placeholder name than his own.

And he’d promised Sanha they’d all get together after the game, right? Sure, he’d been lying at the time- hadn’t expected it to be possible- but he wants it not to be a lie. Wants to see them, despite his anger at Jinwoo. Despite Jinwoo’s anger at him.

Staring down at the pages he didn’t draw, Dongmin knows what he wants. Is prepared for what might happen. He considers what he’ll do if he’s trapped there, considers what he’ll do if everyone finds out the truth and is angry with him, and he just… doesn’t care. Doesn’t consider any of that worth not trying.

So he picks up a pen.

 

Waking, this time, is less painful. His head doesn’t hurt as much, as he blinks into awareness, vision hazy. His head spins, and he can’t really make sense of where he is or who’s with him- though he can tell someone is- but somehow he just knows. Knows he’s back in the world he’d made.

“You know,” someone starts, though Dongmin’s mind his too foggy- too heavy- to figure out _who_. “I never even thought about my friends name until I started thinking about killing Myungjun. How did I never once think of his name? And once I had? I was suddenly very aware that something was wrong with me. With the game. With the world? I don’t know…”

“Jinwoo?”

“Oh.” There’s surprise in his voice, and Dongmin is sure he’s right. That Jinwoo is talking. “You’re awake.”

“Kinda?” Dongmin blinks again, shaking his head. “I can’t… really see? It’s blurry.”

Jinwoo hums in acknowledgement. “You hit your head again. Dropped to the ground before I could stop you.”

“Oh.” Dongmin nods. His head doesn’t hurt, despite his impaired senses. “What… were you saying?”

“You heard me?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” Jinwoo says, again. “When you showed up, on the first day, I knew who you were, but I didn’t know why. I tried to see if Myungjun knew, too. Or the others, but everyone just seemed confused you were unconscious, not that you were there. I just- I couldn’t ask you, either. I don’t know why.”

“Jinwoo?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you… hate me?” Dongmin closes his eyes, blurriness getting to him.

“Maybe. At first. Then the end of the first week happened and… when I called your name, Bin looks surprised that I knew it. I don’t know, something about that made me realize this mattered to you too. We did.”

Dongmin nods, reaches up to hold his own head. “Why didn’t you bring it up, after that?”

“I-” Jinwoo laughs- “I think I was scared of you?”

“Of me?’

“Because you’d put us all here, and you’d made us, and you knew _everything_. And then, Bin was acting differently and I was _sure_  he remembered, but I couldn’t talk to him either, because what would I say? Would he know we weren’t real too?”

“He didn’t.”

“I figured. Not sure why I do.”

“You are real, now.”

“Huh?”

“Parts of your life exist that I didn’t write.” Dongmin sighs, finally opening his eyes again. He can make out Jinwoo sitting next to him, now. Is distinctly aware that he’s laying on a bed, and Jinwoo is sitting next to it. “Parts of your feelings that I didn’t plan.”

“I see…”

“Jinwoo?”

“Yeah?”

“Where are we?” They aren’t in either of their rooms, or the common area.

“Hospital. You don’t exist, you know?”

“What.” It’s a statement of confusion, more than a question. Dongmin sits up, looking around. Jinwoo’s right, it is a hospital.

“In the game? You were never there, as far as anyone remembers.” So like the story on paper. But why? “And my _friend_  doesn’t exist, you know? You were here, instead, with a head injury that was definitely from passing out, and no disease. Kinda screwed up I went through all that to save someone who doesn’t exist. Guess you did too, though.”

“I’m sorry.” Dongmin sighs, holding his head. “Nobody… remembers?”

“I haven’t talked to the others, but the public doesn’t. Eunwoo doesn’t exist.” There’s a pause, where Jinwoo lets Dongmin process this. Lets him realize the situation he’s in. The pages he’d read are reality, the way things exist. And he- his influence- was erased. Replaced with people just acting differently on their own. Then why was he here? His promise to Sanha meant nothing, when the other didn’t remember him. Minhyuk and Myungjun would feel nothing, if they saw him.

“I wanted answers, but now I don’t know what to ask you anymore. Do you even know why you remembered in the first place?”

“Have a theory.” Jinwoo shrugs. “But, hey, do you want to leave?”

“Is there a point?” Dongmin meets Jinwoo’s eyes, expecting the other to be unsure, but Jinwoo shakes his head.

“Is there a point to staying in the hospital? Come on, you can meet your friends, huh?”

“They don’t know me.”

“Meet my friends, then.”

 

Jinwoo gets a nurse, and after an hour, Dongmin is released from the hospital. He has nowhere to go, so ends up following Jinwoo, despite himself. He wants to ask about Jinwoo’s theory, about the others, about what Jinwoo is going to do with the prize money, now that Dongmin exists in place of his friend. None of the questions will leave him, though.

Until they’re nearing a small cafe- one he recognizes from the epilogue- and Jinwoo motions him inside. “Jinwoo… you were serious?”

“Yep.”

Everyone else is there. Myungjun is clinging to Sanha, as the two laugh about something. Minhyuk steals a pastry from Sanha, while the other is distracted. Bin, catching Minhyuk doing this, tries to hide a laugh of his own. And then they notice Dongmin and Jinwoo. Well, they notice Jinwoo.

“Jinwoo!” Myungjun jumps to his feet. “You’re late, you know.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Jinwoo’s smile seems to come easily, naturally. Now that he’s seeing it, Dongmin realizes how fake his smile was during the game. How had he never noticed?

“Is that your friend Dongmin?” Sanha asks, the first to look at Dongmin. Next to him, Minhyuk frowns.

“I thought he was sickly? He looks normal.”

“If he was still that bad, he wouldn’t be out of the hospital.” Jinwoo glances at Dongmin. “Well… that’s not entirely it.”

“What are you talking about?” Bin’s voice clearly displays that he’s upset. “You aren’t- you don’t honestly want to pretend we don’t recognize Eunwoo?”

“Who-woo?” Sanha’s question causes Bin’s attention to snap to him.

“Are- you’re serious?!”

“Bin-” Jinwoo stops when Bin’s attention turns to him.

“Actually,” Dongmin starts, “there really isn’t any need to pretend my name isn’t Dongmin, now. I think you’re the only one who recognizes me, Bin.” It hurts to say it, after everything he did, but that’s probably the case.

“Do I not exists?” Jinwoo mutters.

“I meant of the others.”

“Wait!” Sanha jumps to his feet. “That wasn’t your real name?!”

“Uh-”

“Guy’s we’re in public,” Jinwoo reminds them, motioning ot the staff who look none too pleased with their outbursts. Dongmin is too caught up in Sanha’s reaction to care. Not his real name? Did he… remember Dongmin? How? Jinwoo said Dongmin’s existence in the game had disappeared. Was he lying? What reason would he have had to do that if he was?

“I’m a horrible person.” Sanha’s words are filled with a clear belief they’re true, and that bothers Dongmin.

“What are you saying? You aren’t.” Sanha looks up at Dongmin, at that.

“But I completely forgot you existed until just now.”

“What-”

“Oh thank god it wasn’t just me.” Myungjun breathes a dramatic, heavy, sigh. “Thanks for being awful, too, kid.”

“Except clearly he expected us not to remember him, for some reason.” Minhyuk frowns, as he speaks. “And was right, at that.”

“But after he helped me- and you-” Sanha pokes Minhyuk in the side, making the other jump- “escape.”

“I’m very confused.” Bin’s admission makes Dongmin feel better about how confused he is, too.

“Maybe… we should talk about this somewhere else?” Jinwoo’s suggestion gets a chorus of agreement.

 

A lot of unexpected things have happened in Dongmin’s life. Filing into Jinwoo’s small apartment, with the others, only for Sanha to practically jump on him, is pretty high up there.

The, “I was so scared you were going to die when you didn’t follow me,” that Sanha gives following this, ranks pretty high, too.

“Sanha… you remember that?”

“How could I forget?”

“You… shouldn’t remember.”

“Yeah, about that.” Minhyuk gets their attention. “ _What the hell?”_

“Oh, right.” Dongmin glances at Jinwoo, then Bin.

“I can explain what I know?” Bin offers, and Jinwoo gives a relieved nod.

“What _do_ you know, Bin?” At Myungjun’s question, Bin starts to explain.

“During the first week of the game, at the end, Sanha tried to escape.”

“We know?”

“No, listen. He _tried_  to escape. I spent that day in Eunwoo- Dongmin’s room, _with him_ , and when the announcement happened, Sanha was dead.”

“I’m right here?”

“Yes, I’m getting there. So we were obviously upset, right? Well the next thing I knew, it was the second day again. And instead of talking to me, Dongmin talked to Sanha. And at the end of the week, helped him escape successfully. Which made me think maybe all that other stuff had happened, and Dongmin _also_  remembered.”

“So… you guys… time traveled?” Myungjun’s disbelief is clear.

“Maybe?”

“I remember more than that,” Jinwoo says, finally. He looks to Dongmin, as if waiting for Dongmin to say it’s okay. That they can tell them. Dongmin’s scared, though. If they know what he did to them, originally, would saving them this time matter? Would they care? He’d done it selfishly, after all.

“It’s… okay.”

“You’re sure? Everything?”

“Yeah, they… deserve to know.”

Jinwoo explains. Tells them everything from the original story. From the one only he and Dongmin could remember. Bin looks horrified, at the realization there was a time where he killed Sanha. And finding out that Dongmin had been trying to stop him, that first time. Minhyuk is equally unhappy, learning what he’d done. Refuses to look at the group when he hears it. Jinwoo hesitates, when it comes to explaining what he was going to- but never actually did- do to Myungjun, before explaining that too.

“And then… for the first time, I thought about my friends actual _name_ , and it was his.” Jinwoo motions to Dongmin. “Then suddenly I realized how weird it was I hadn’t until then, and everything else.”

And then Jinwoo tells them the worst part. Who Dongmin is, to them. What he did.

“This is…” Myungjun mutters, shaking his head. “A lot.”

“I wanted to undo that.” Dongmin’s words draw the other’s eyes. “I wanted to _save_  all of you, once I realized you were more than just characters.”

“But you- you did that to us!” Bin’s voice is startlingly loud, cracks as he speaks. “I trusted you, but you knew everything from the very beginning!”

Dongmin expected this, but flinches at his words, anyway. “I’m sorry-”

“And you!” Bin points at Jinwoo, more angry. “You didn’t even try to help!”

“Bin-”

“I hate both of you.”

Dongmin nods, Jinwoo doesn’t move or say anything. What could they say? Jinwoo had done nothing, and Dongmin had been the problem in the first place. He’d ruined their lives long before the game ever happened.

“Well, I guess we know how Bin feels.” Minhyuk crosses his arms. “I’m kind of pissed off myself, actually. Well… I want to be.”

“Want to be?” Jinwoo asks, frowning.

“Yeah, well, I am pissed off at you.”

“Oh.”

“But I already knew Dongmin was selfish, so I’m not as angry as I want to be.”

“Huh?” Dongmin snaps his attention fully to Minhyuk.

“I already told I thought you were selfish. You admitted it. You wanted to save us because you were selfish, right? This just makes that make more sense.”

“I have mixed feelings,” Sanha says, finally. “I mean… you did save my life.”

“I can’t believe both of you.” Bin scoffs. “You’re really not mad? Dongmin ruined our lives. Even before the game.”

“I know, but-”

“I’m leaving.” Bin doesn’t let anyone respond, storming out of the apartment. Dongmin wants to stop him, to say _something_ , but he can’t. Bin’s problems trusting others was his fault, too, and he’d just added more to that, with this.

“Well…” Myungjun laughs, nervously. “I guess that’s one less person who’s going to come to that reunion meal, huh?”

“Wasn’t that what today was supposed to be?” Sanha mutters, quiet.

“Well obviously we need to redo it after this!”

“Myungjun you’re… okay with this?”

“Hey you never actually managed to kill me.” Myungjun shrugs. “I’ll get over it.”

“Okay…” Dongmin has a hard time believing that, but what would he do? Accuse Myungjun of lying?

 

Dongmin isn’t really sure how to feel. Everything happened too quickly, and was too much all at once. Over the course of three weeks, he stays with Jinwoo. Sharing an apartment and slowly breaking down the remaining anger they held towards each other. Jinwoo was scared, and Dongmin was just writing a story, originally. Jinwoo’s want to change things, and Dongmin’s efforts to do just that saved everyone, so there wasn’t a need to be angry with each other. Dongmin sort of expects, at the end of his first week, to wake back in the real world, but he doesn’t. Nor after the second, or the third. He suspects he might never go back. He has nothing to fix, here. Nothing to change. Jinwoo tries, “thinking really hard about Dongmin going back,” but it doesn’t help any, either.

So Dongmin remains in their world. After three weeks, everyone- except Bin- agree to meet up again. For dinner. Jinwoo is hosting the group, worried that if they’re all together they’ll say something strange in public. Something about Dongmin. Minhyuk confesses, shortly after everyone else arrives, that he tried inviting Bin despite everything. Bin not showing up, though, seems to indicate he meant what he said.

 _I hate both of you_. It hurt, honestly, but Dongmin knew why he felt that way. Understood.

“Kinda messed up that Dongmin did all the work and didn’t get any prize money,” Myungjun says, fighting with Minhyuk over a piece of cooked meat. “I will fist-fight you if you don’t let go of that, Minhyuk.”

“Try me.” Minhyuk wins the struggle, grinning at the disappointment on Myungjun's face. “Shouldn’t he get Jinwoo’s? Since Jinwoo wanted it for him, anyway.”

“Yeah, about that... your friend just… doesn’t exist?” Sanha asks Jinwoo.

“This one is my friend.” Jinwoo motions to Dongmin, who shrugs. “Or he’s in his place.”

“That’s screwed up.”

“Does that mean I get your prize money, Jinwoo?” Dongmin turns to the other, who smacks him. “Ow?”

“I’m letting you live here, you freeloader.”

“Hey, so… did we ever figure out what made us remember?”

“Dongmin introduced himself.” Minhyuk shrugs.

“Uh, but we’d heard his name before then?” Sanha frowns.

“Not from him, though.” Jinwoo’s statement get’s more frowns in response. These one’s of thought, while they consider this. They hadn’t heard his name _from_  him, but from Jinwoo. Jinwoo had gotten his name from Dongmin, even though it was via being written to know it, and Dongmin had told Bin his name. Actually…

“That… that technically fits.” Dongmin’s frown deepens. “Was it that simple? If I had said my name to start with, would you all have remembered when I messed up the first time?”

“That sure would have made things easier-” knocking cuts Myungjun off.

“Uh… expecting something else, Jinwoo?” Minhyuk asks, only for Jinwoo to shake his head.

“Just you guys.” Jinwoo stands, and makes his way towards the door.

“Maybe Bin decided to come, after all!” Sanha’s optimism isn’t something Dongmin shares, until he hears his voice.

“You guys really just assumed I wouldn’t.”

“Bin! I was joking but you’re here!”

Dongmin spins around where he sits, looking towards Bin. Jinwoo stands behind the other, looking as confused as Dongmin feels.

“So I thought about it…” Bin pauses. “And I realized- once you realized we were real, you just kept trying to save us, so…”

“So?”

“I’m no as angry as I thought I was, I guess.” Bin shrugs, seeming unsure with himself. “Even when I remembered, I’m not sure I would have believed you if you had told me the truth.”

“Oh.”

“So…”

“So you’re late!” Myungjun jumps to his feet. “We started eating without you!”

“Sorry?”

“I’ll get you a plate and stuff,” Jinwoo says, while Bin joins the others around the table.

“Bin…” Dongmin can’t bring himself to look Bin in the eyes.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry about everything, but thank you for helping me save the others.”

“Oh. Thanks. Yeah. No problem…”

 

Four more weeks pass, and Dongmin still remains in their world. He gave up hope of returning weeks ago, though. He was stuck here, it seemed. Just like he worried he would be. Would have to live his life in their world, instead of his own. Part of him wonders what happened in the “real” world if that’s the case. Did time still not pass? Or did he disappear? No matter what the answer is, it doesn’t really affect him, he guesses.

Jinwoo does not, in fact, give Dongmin the prize money. He does, however, invest in a bigger apartment so the two of them have more space. Everyone gets together, regularly. Updates about their lives remind Dongmin that he’s no longer in control of their fate. That they’re real, despite him.

Sanha and his parents keep their home. Bin’s parents woke up, recently , and he’s returned to college. Myungjun’s business is off to a nice start, despite his lacking experience in running one. His popularity from being one of the participants of the only all-survivor round of the game gains more clients than what he’s actually selling, though. Minhyuk uses his prize money to pay bills while he attends a preforming arts school.

Dongmin has been struggling to write or draw, recently. After his last characters turned into real people, he deeply fears making character’s lives awful. But, then, stories were supposed to have some sort of conflict.

“Why don’t you write about an author trapped in their own story?” Jinwoo jokes, while Dongmin stares at a blank page.

“I hate you. That’s not funny.” Dongmin sighs. “Maybe I’ll write something soft. Like, a romance? I’ve never actually done that.”

“Hey it’s your story, you do what you want.”

“Last time I did that you came to life just to be pissed off about it.”

“Okay, but have you considered: you deserved that?”

“No.”

 

Inevitably, over the course of someone’s life, many unexpected things will happen. No matter how prepared they are for any situation, no matter how put-together their life is, something unexpected is bound to happen. This isn’t a new revelation, nor is it surprising.

Still, living out the rest of your life within the universe of a story you’d written? Pretty high up on the unexpected scale, honestly.

Dongmin is pretty certain he’s okay with it, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it. it's the final chapter, y'all.  
> I really struggled to be happy with the way this turned out, but it is what I planned for this ending so.......  
> hey you know how the "w" in "eunwoo" isn't real? like it's there for romanization but when they say it, you don't hear it? so sanha says "who-oo" and thats somehow really funny to me.
> 
> anyway the reason this isn't marked complete just yet, despite this being the last real chapter, is uh bonus stuff: specifically i wrote a whole thing pointing out some Jinwoo stuff from before he actually told Dongmin he knew the truth
> 
> So now that we're here, lets talk about this chapter:  
> Okay so yeah crescentbin (btw only realized yesterday that crescent is a type of moon) actually made a comment at some point that said "or maybe it has to do with Dongmin's name?" about why bin remembered and i was like "oh shit was it too obvious" but then when i said "hey jinwoo has heard dongmins name bc it's his friends name" nobody went "Wait does jinwoo know the truth?!" so i was like "okay crisis averted"  
> I kinda feel like I over explained in this chapter? but unlike escape, this wasn't meant to be vague bc vague things are scary. (although the answers were all there in escape, too, i just didn't spell them out blatantly like here)  
> uh other stuff? Dongmin still uses Eunwoo around other people bc he doesn't wanna risk it, so only astro know.
> 
> oh yeah the reason dongmin woke up where he did, instead of back in the game, is bc jinwoo's "hey asshole who wrote this, fix this" will was no longer what brough dongmin back. since he wanted to go back, without the goal of changing anything, he didn't have a place in the game anymore. not sure if the way I said that makes sense but yeah.


	10. BONUS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Jinwoo, what the fuck? you knew the whole time, huh?  
> i haven't really edited this and it's not a story chapter. It's just a short discussion/compliation of jinwoo either acting weird before his reveal, or me pointing out what he was thinking when he said/did certain things, now that you know he knew.

A compilation of Jinwoo being weird

**Note: Not all of this is things that were hints. A lot of it is just stuff that, in hindsight, is like, “Wait a second jinwoo-” whereas at the time they seemed perfectly normal. There are a few things that were meant to at least make it make sense when you did find out Jinwoo knew, but a lot of it is just hindsight stuff.**

  1. “But _how did he get here_?” Another, deeper, voice asks. With a surprising amount of calm to his tone, the person who speaks looks back to Dongmin. “Hey, are you okay? Can you answer our questions?”



There’s absolutely no reason for Jinwoo to be confused about how Dongmin got here. His question should have been about Dongmin being unconscious, not being there in the first place. The only reason Bin- the third voice in that scene, Sanha was the first- asks “what are you doing here” a second later is because jinwoo asked like that. However bin’s question is more, “what are you doing on the floor,” than jinwoos, “how are you here”

That’s the only thing from before chapter 3, so moving on:

  1. “So, still trying to look smart?” Dongmin asks, motioning to the book in the other’s hand. Not being read, but stared at, until Bin looks up to meet Dongmin’s eyes. Across the room, Jinwoo looks at the two oddly, before leaving.



Obviously at the time this is just, something that happens? There’s no reason for anyone to think this moment is weird, just establishing someone else we there. Really, Jinwoo at this moment is realizing what Dongmin is going to do, and looks at them weirdly because, well, its new to the game, since Dongmin wasn’t there originally.

  1. The entire scene where Jinwoo goes to check on Dongmin, but specifically this line: “Bin said you looked sick, so I got worried. I know no one could do anything even if they wanted, but still…”



In context, it seems just like him being worried normally. But in reality he wouldn’t have been, if it wasn’t Dongmin, since nobody could have done anything to him, and since he heard about it from Bin, he clearly knew it wasn’t something really bad. The real reason he was worried, here, is because he doesn’t know how being here is affecting Dongmin.

  1. “You know, theoretically all of us could make it out of here.” Jinwoo’s words catch Dongmin- and everyone else- off guard. Had he written that? He must have.



Yeah no Dongmin you didn’t write that you idiot. (like, relatable, I too often forget what I wrote but come on.) Jinwoo brought it up because he knows what originally happened and wants to really drill the reminder into Dongmin that, hey, if it wasn’t for him being horrible to his characters they all could have escaped.

  1. “We will.” Jinwoo’s voice hold a certainty Dongmin is grateful for. While caught up in what happens with Sanha and Bin, he’d nearly forgotten there were three other characters here. And that one was someone like Jinwoo. “Right,  _Eunwoo_?”



There’s absolutely no reason for him to emphasize his name here? Like, in context/when it happened anyone would think it was so that Dongmin would notice he was being spoken to. Dongmin doesn’t even comment/think on it, too busy being surprised he’s being addressed. However, from Jinwoo’s perspective, he’s doing to because he knows that’s not actually his name, and is trying to get under his skin, just a bit. Not enough to reveal anything, but..

  1. When they reach the common area, Jinwoo is aimlessly wandering the kitchen. He seems distraught, searching for distraction. Bin calls out to him, before Dongmin can, and he turns the face the pair with an expression that’s blank. Any emotion is buried too far for Dongmin to see.



Hey Dongmin don’t you think it’s a little weird your character isn’t showing any emotion, and you have no idea what he’s thinking? Little bit off when you made him, isn’t it? Little weird that you didn’t notice that this wasn’t the reaction he originally had, Dongmin.

Obviously this was a hint for Dongmin, but not as much for readers, but still.

  1. “If I had the chance I would try, at least.” Jinwoo laughs unhappily. “Wouldn’t you, Eunwoo?”



Is the one to trigger Dongmin going back. If you’d voted wrong, more, it might have been more obvious, since he would have always been the one to do so.

  1. “You’re just assuming-”  
“We will.” Jinwoo’s words cut Bin off.  
“You’re so  _certain_ about that, huh?”  
“I want to be.”



Obviously this is another one where in context you’re like, _yeah that makes sense_. Jinwoo wants everyone to escape, that’s normal. This one wasn’t a hint at all, but it does make a little bit more sense _now_  that Jinwoo was acting like this. Of course he wouldn’t want to listen to Bin doubt them all making it out because Bin is right, but that’s exactly why Dongmin is there. To fix things.

  1. “Nobody died last time; if we keep this up maybe none of us will.”



Yeah okay Jinwoo. Wonder why you’re so convinced. Again this wasn’t a hint, but isn’t a little weird how it’s _always_  Jinwoo or Dongmin- usually Jinwoo- who brings up the fact they can all make it out?

  1. Myungjun wrings his hands, likely realizing that he doesn’t actually know what the results of his supposedly peaceful day were. Bin tries to appear calm, but that doesn’t work. Dongmin can tell the other is just as worried as Dongmin is. Jinwoo seems the calmest of them, at least.



Why you so calm, Jinwoo. Know something they don’t? Huh? Dongmin’s worried because he put all this work into changing things, and if it fails he’s gonna have to go back (if that’s even an option again, which he can’t even be sure about), but Jinwoo _isn’t_  worried for exactly that reason. Dongmin will just have to try again if he failed.

  1. “Everyone survived again,” Jinwoo says, quietly.



Jinwoo is the _only_  one who has a line after they find out Minhyuk escaped. Which doesn’t seem that odd, but while everyone else is busy being relieved he’s over here realizing that he was _right_  and that Dongmin being there is fixing things. And that he wont have to watch them die again.

  1. “Everyone- uh- that we could all escape? It’s starting to look more realistic, now.”  
“Oh, right.” Jinwoo nods, giving Dongmin a small smile. “Thanks to you, more than anyone.”



Jinwoo please.

  1. “if you weren’t here, would Sanha and Minhyuk have actually escaped okay? Seems like you helped them a lot, right?”



Jinwoo _please_.

  1. “Why did you sign up for this game?” He’d asked the others, despite knowing. Felt the need to ask Jinwoo, too. (He realizes, after a second, he never actually asked Sanha.)  
“You don’t know?”



JINJIN PLEASE.

  1. “Yeah. His treatment is expensive, and Dongmin was a college student, so he doesn’t exactly have money lying around.”



There’s was absolutely no reason to use his friend’s name here, especially since he hadn’t _told_  Dongmin it yet.

  1. And then later in that conversation Jinwo asks Dongmin why he signed up for the game, knowing that Dongmin didn’t, just to see what he’d say.
  2. “What made you help Sanha?”  
The question isn’t one Dongmin expects, but he answers quickly. “He reminded me of my friend.”  
“Dongmin?”  
“Huh?”  
“Your friend?”



Two things about this: He’s not asking just because he’s curious, but because he knows Dongmin changed things, and wants to know what made him do that. He knows Dongmin could have just left on his own, since he knew everything he needed in order to do that, and since Dongmin wrote them to die in the first place he wonders what made him change his mind.

The second thing is he 100% uses Dongmin’s name here on it’s own to mess with him. Instead of, “you mean your friend Dongmin?” or something similar to that, he skips right to the name because he’s a jerk.

  1. “But then you’ll be the youngest, you know.” Jinwoo points at Dongmin, who shrugs in return.  
“Then I’ll skip myself, probably. That’d mean… you?”  
“I’ll look forward to it.”



Sure you will, Jinwoo. This one doesn’t really count I just like calling him out for saying this despite knowing very well Myungjun is the only one left to save.

  1. “What’s your friend like?”  
“Dongmin?”  
“Yeah.”



Literally who else would he be talking about Jinwoo. You just like saying his name to mess with him.

  1. “Well other than being a sickly college student, he’s pretty quick to anger. Not that he’s- like- a bad kid, or anything. If anything, you remind me a lot of him. Maybe I should pull a you, and try to save you because you remind me of him.”



Yeah? He reminds you of him, huh? Wonder why that is. Maybe it’s because.. you just described the person you were talking to?

  1. At one point, Jinwoo jokes that it’s almost like Dongmin is trying help him to escape, instead of Bin next, since they’re spending so much time together. 



Now he’s just calling me out, to be honest. But, yeah, obviously he only make that comment because he knows.

  1. Dongmin watches the other for any sign of a negative reaction, or guilt, or  _anything_. There’s nothing, however. Jinwoo seems completely unconcerned. Unaffected by the news.



Jinwoo wasn’t _actually_  planning to kill Myungjun. I don’t know if that was obvious, but his plan had a lot of holes and he knew the truth at this time, so he knew if he just let Dongmin do whatever, it would have been fine. The reason he set up the poison at all was to give Dongmin a goal so he would save Myungjun. Because he knows in the original timeline- that Dongmin wrote- he was supposed to kill the other, so he planned a murder specifically so Dongmin wouldn’t realize he knew.

And then obviously his entire conversation with Dongmin leading up to him just straight up saying it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we have it! I might go ahead and write the alternative ending to this route at some point, but not today or maybe even this week
> 
> oh, uh, so now that an ending has been reached, fun fact: had you gotten every choice wrong, you would not have gotten the last no-bad-end choice bc dongmin would have been dead.  
> yeah. remember how i said every time you messed up he got hurt? 1 time (the first one, which you saw) it was just a little head wound, no big. the 2nd time (no matter if it was during the minhyuk chapter or the saving myungjun one) would have broken a bone, which obviously wouldn't have healed before the end of the game. and if you got all 3 wrong, he would have died in order to save the last person  
> bc, ya know, im awful :)  
> but that was the only way you'd get the bad-bad end. and aroha's are too smart to fall for my bad-end traps apparently
> 
> After Escape and this story i realize how much i like the system and types of stories they were so uh, maybe i'll write another one soon? would you guys want that? and if so, what about? or who to be the mc?  
> and should it be like these two, or something lighter? like, a less deadly situation?


	11. Alternate End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The "Don't go back into the story" Ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "no i probably wont write the other ending" -me, 2019
> 
> yeah ok you tell yourself that

He can’t go back. Or, maybe he could, but Dongmin… can’t go back. He has no idea what kind of effect that would have on everything, and honestly... he’s scared. Scared that he’ll mess something up for them. Scared that Jinwoo hates him, because of what he knows, and that the others will too if he tells them the truth. So Dongmin gathers the pages, puts them in a folder, and hides them on one of his shelves.

Checking former issues of the comic, the ones that were already published, reveals something really strange. It’s changed. It’s all changed, just like the pages he has, and the new pages have been published. Completed. Nobody seems to have reacted to this whatsoever, as if that was always the case, and that worries him. How much of an effect did what he’d done have?

Could where he was even still be considered _real?_

No, it didn’t matter. It was _over_ , and he already decided to leave that all behind. To move on with his life.

 

Dongmin still doesn’t know why Jinwoo and Bin remembered what they did. He has theories, of course, but no answers. They both remembered, they both knew his name, they both were originally killers who didn’t escape the game after Dongmin changed things. But then, Bin did escape  _eventually_ , so maybe not that last one?

It’s not worth thinking about, he reminds himself for what must be the hundredth time.

Dongmin focuses on school, too scared to draw or write again. After his characters turned into real people, and one of them realized who he was, it was hard not to be worried. Though he isn’t making a _lot_  off of the finished comic, he still earns enough from that to keep himself alive, while in college, so he doesn’t have to start anything new, just yet. Maybe he’ll get a job that’ll keep him busy, when he graduates.

Then again, he still _wants_  to draw. To write. Maybe something nicer, this time. Without killing or being cruel to his characters. At the very least, something intended to have a happy ending. He can do that. He can.

Dongmin still doesn’t draw anything for months.

 

Come summer, Dongmin moves back into his parents home. He’ll get a dorm, come the return of his schooling, but he finds himself worried every time he goes into his room, in the original apartment. Too worried that he’ll walk in there, only to wake up back in the story. It doesn’t happen- of course it doesn’t- but that never eases his worries.

When he finally starts drawing again, in the middle of summer, it’s just to take commissions. Small things, no comics. Of course, he isn’t so lucky as to avoid the topic of his characters. (Could he still call them that?) The first person to commission him wants a drawing of Myungjun, claiming Dongmin didn’t focus on him enough, so they needed more content. Which, he can’t exactly argue with, even originally Myungjun’s backstory hadn’t been given as much time, since he was meant to die. Still, he struggles to make himself draw the other.

When he does, nothing happens.

Somehow that’s disappointing.

When he returns to school, Dongmin moves into a dorm with a roommate. He recognizes Dongmin, has read the story, and that nearly makes Dongmin request a different room. Still, the other only brings it up that once, and when Dongmin clearly doesn’t want to talk about it, never again. They become friends, over the course of the first two months, and Dongmin tries not to think about how he is the first real friend Dongmin has made since the story.

Maybe since before then.

Had his characters really been his only real friends, in that long? Dongmin pushes that thought away, whenever it pops up. They weren’t his friends. He lied to them, because he ruined their lives, and only saved them because he felt guilty.

Would they hate him, if they knew?

 

One day, a Sunday afternoon, Dongmin finds himself sitting at his desk. A blank page in front of him, pencil in hand. He has an idea- a small thing, a short, nice, _fluff_  comic. Nobody dies, or has their lives ruined, and the characters aren’t nearly as complex as- other characters he’s written.

It’s fine.

It should be fine.

He completes a rough draft of the comic within three days, and it’s the most at ease he’s felt in month. Looking at a completed story that he wrote. That he actually drew with his own hands, rather than actions. One he _planned_ , not that changed around him.

His roommate finds the pages, when looking to borrow a pen, and says they seem different than his last work. It’s a simple comment, doesn’t mean much, but Dongmin nods, frowning.

“I want to write… more stuff like this.”

“You should!”

Dongmin starts properly drawing and publishing comics again, halfway into his school year. He’s slower at it, now, but not for lack of motivation this time. School work is his focus, at the moment, and he still hesitates, sometimes, to pick up a pen. But it’s fine. He’s fine.

 

Inevitably, over the course of someone’s life, many unexpected things will happen. No matter how prepared they are for any situation, no matter how put-together their life is, something unexpected is bound to happen. This isn’t a new revelation, nor is it surprising.

Dongmin’s life, however, follows a fairly expected course. It’s rare something _truly_  unexpected happens to him. Sometimes, he wonders, if he’s just filled his life-time quota for unexpected happenings.

It had been real. What had happened. He knows it. An unexpected four weeks of his life- a four weeks that _didn’t happen_  in the real world, one of which didn’t happen in its own world- had come and gone, and it’s fine, now. They’re fine. His story is fine.

Sometimes he wonders if he should have gone back. If they would have hated him, if he did. If he would _understand_  if he did.

But he didn’t, and he doesn’t try.

So Dongmin draws comics, still. Goes to college, still. Has a roommate who’s his friend and doesn’t question how uncomfortable talking about _that_  story makes him.

And it’s fine, he’s fine.

It’s just…

Exactly what he expected his life to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i said neither ending was a "bad end" but now that i wrote this one...........  
> oof
> 
> i wrote this bc im still not sure which group to use for the next story i write (which i DO already have an idea for ^^) bc i wanna use at least a slightly bigger group? maybe i'll end up using astro but-
> 
> anyway, thanks for sticking with this story guys

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always greatly appreciated!


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